Almere City and Groningen will do battle at the Yanmar Stadion on Saturday afternoon in round four of the 2024-25 Eredivisie season.
The hosts go in search of their first point of the campaign at the fourth time of asking, while their visitors have made a flying start to life back in the top flight.
Match preview
Almere City were left red-faced at the sound of the full-time whistle last Saturday after being on the receiving end of a humiliating 7-1 thrashing against reigning champions PSV Eindhoven.
After going into the interval two goals down, Hedwiges Maduro's men got themselves back into the game just shy of the hour mark before conceding five unanswered goals in the final 25 minutes.
Off the back of consecutive blanks against AZ Alkmaar and Fortuna Sittard in their opening two games, De Zwarte Schapen managed to break their attacking duck through Kornelius Hansen last time out but have now let in 11 goals at the other end—at least two more than any other side.
Almere's start to the campaign has been a baptism of fire, to say the least, which leaves them currently sitting bottom of the Eredivisie table, one of three sides without a point on the board so far.
Heading into the first international break of the season, Saturday's hosts will be keen to get themselves back on track with all three points in front of their fans, where they have not won a competitive game since February.
Newly promoted Groningen could have hardly asked for a better reintroduction to the Eredivisie after a one-year stint in the Eerste Divisie, with seven points picked up from a possible nine this term.
Dick Lukkien's men kicked off proceedings with an emphatic 4-1 victory over fellow newcomers NAC Breda on August 9, when they went into the interval having pretty much got the job done.
They then narrowly edged out RKC Waalwijk 2-1 eight days later to make it two wins from as many matches and stretch their unbeaten run to 21 matches since a 2-1 cup defeat to Feyenoord.
In arguably their biggest test so far, Trots van het Noorden held AZ Alkmaar to a goalless stalemate last time out, thanks in no small part to Etienne Vaessen's heroic display between the sticks.
Groningen's impressive start has propelled them to second in the standings, two points adrift of early pacesetters PSV, while only last season's top two sides have found the back of the net on more occasions.
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Team News
Thomas Robinet was hauled off with an injury scare in the early exchanges of Almere's 3-0 defeat to Fortuna and missed the game against PSV as a result.
Kornelius Hansen led the line for the home side in Robinet's absence last time out, and the Norwegian is expected to do so once again this weekend.
Ricardo Visus and Baptiste Guillaume are both eligible to feature here having served their respective suspensions for red cards against AZ Alkmaar in the opening round.
Twenty-year-old Fofin Turay is still unavailable for Groningen due to a muscle injury, but the forward is not far off a return to action after missing the last three games.
Finn Stam has been booked in his last two matches and will need to keep his discipline in check to avoid edging closer to the threshold for a ban.
Almere City possible starting lineup:
Bakker; Akujobi, Visus, Mamengi, Zagaritis; Resink, Balboa; Delaurier-Chaubet, Van de Kamp, Mattoir; Hansen
Groningen possible starting lineup:
Vaessen; Bacuna, Rente, Peersman, Stam; Schreuders, Hove, De Jonge, Valente; Postema, Van Bergen
We say: Almere City 1-3 Groningen
Almere City have been all over the place defensively so far, and we can see that continuing in this weekend's affair.
We are also tipping Groningen to claim a relatively routine triumph and continue their fairytale start to the season.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
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