In search of a third win on the bounce, Cambuur welcome AZ Alkmaar to the Cambuur-Stadion on Sunday in round eight of the 2021-22 Eredivisie season.
Meanwhile, the away side will be looking to record back to back victories for the first time this term after returning to winning ways last time out.
Match preview
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AZ Alkmaar ended a run of three straight defeats in grand style by thrashing newcomers Go Ahead Eagles 5-0 at the AFAS Stadion on Sunday.
Jesper Karlsson was the star of the show, netting twice in a game where Dani De Wit, Zakaria Aboukhlal and Tijjani Reijnders also got on the scoresheet.
Courtesy of that victory, AZ have moved up into 12th place in the Eredivisie table, a whopping nine points off third place where they finished last term.
Pascal Jansen's men also narrowly eased past the Czech Republic outfit Jablonec in a 1-0 Conference League victory on Thursday when the teams faced off.
Next up for them is a clash against a Cambuur side who have not won any of the last eight meetings between the teams, losing six times and picking up two draws.
Cambuur recorded their first away victory of the new campaign on Sunday when they claimed a convincing 4-0 triumph over Sparta Rotterdam.
Issa Kallon was in top form for Henk de Jong's men as he scored two goals sandwiched in between strikes from Alex Bangura and Tom Boere.
After suffering consecutive defeats to start the season, The Yellow-Blues have amassed 12 of the subsequent 15 points available and moved up into seventh place.
Sunday's hosts, who have won each of their last three matches on home turf, now set out to secure another impressive result in front of their fans and continue their surge up the table.
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Team News
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Despite being fit enough to be named on the home side's bench last time out, 20-year-old Maxim Gullit is not expected to feature this weekend.
Cambuur will have to make do without the services of Erik Schouten, who is set to miss a fifth consecutive game through a knee problem.
Dutch midfielder Jeremy Helmer still awaits his first appearance for the visitors this term as he continues to battle with a leg injury.
Jordy Clasie was handed a rare start in midweek ahead of Tijjani Reijnders, but the latter should make his return to the starting XI for this one.
Cambuur possible starting lineup:
Stevens; Schmidt, Mac-Intosch, Van der Meer, Bangura; Hoedemakers, Jacobs, Breij, Maulun, Kallon; Boere
AZ Alkmaar possible starting lineup:
Jensen; Wijndal, Martins Indi, Chatzidiakos, Sugawara; Midtsjo, Reijnders, De Wit; Karlsson, Pavlidis, Gudmundsson
We say: Cambuur 1-2 AZ Alkmaar
Cambuur head into the contest as the more in-form side but AZ Alkmaar boast a significantly better squad. We expect an entertaining and end-to-end affair with the away side just edging out their hosts by a narrow margin.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a AZ Alkmaar win with a probability of 42.25%. A win for Cambuur had a probability of 34.06% and a draw had a probability of 23.7%.
The most likely scoreline for an AZ Alkmaar win was 1-2 with a probability of 8.86%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-1 (7.35%) and 0-2 (6.06%). The likeliest Cambuur win was 2-1 (7.85%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.73%). The actual scoreline of 1-3 was predicted with a 4.9% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that AZ Alkmaar would win this match.
