Against All Odds: Eagles to be grounded by VVV

16May 2013

Betfair

The promotion and relegation play-offs have started in Holland and Paul Robinson thinks we could be in for a low scoring affair between Go Ahead Eagles and VVV this evening.

Go Ahead Eagles finished sixth in the Jupiler League and after negotiating their way past Dordrecht in the first round of the play-offs, they now come up against VVV- Venlo of the Eredevisie. They have had some quality players over the years, including Marc Overmars, but things have been a bit tougher of late as they've been plying their trade in the second tier of Dutch football.

Erik ten Hag's side still have a long way to go if they want to seal promotion and earning an advantage at home is key. They are unbeaten in 13 at Adelaarshorst and one of the most pleasing aspects is that they've kept three clean sheets in three of their last four. They do quite often bang in a number of goals themselves, however they fired blanks against MVV and Eindhoven recently and tonight's opponents will be much tougher.

VVV-Venlo finished 17th during the regular season in the Eredivisie and looking at the table it's easy to see why. They netted just 33 goals - the lowest in the entire division - and they finished their campaign with just five in their last 10.

Venlo's form away from De Koel won't fill manager Ton Lokhoff with much confidence as they've lost four of their last six, although their two most recent results were a 1-1 draw with ADO Den Haag and a 0-1 win at Vitesse.

The Go Ahead Eagles are used to high scoring matches in their league but they're playing a much more professional outfit now. VVV will be looking to keep it tight and as it's the first leg, I can see a bit of a cautious approach from both teams. That's why, with over 2.5 goals trading around the 1.77 mark, I have to make it my lay of the day.