Against All Odds: FC Twente too short for Dutch Play-Off

23May 2013

Eredivisie

Twente and Utrecht are playing off for the final Europa League place in Holland and while Twente are odds-on for the first leg, Paul Robinson thinks that Utrecht can avoid defeat.

I love it when a plan comes together and that's exactly what happened yesterday. In my preview of SV Ried and Red Bull Salzburg I said that Salzburg would go out for the win but when the inevitable news came through that Austria Vienna were winning, the players may take their foot off the gas. Well Red Bull went 2-0 up, but Vienna scored three early goals and SV Ried came back to draw 2-2 and thwart our lay.

On to today though and over in Holland there's still one more Europa League place up for grabs. FC Twente will be hoping to earn it and after despatching Groningen over two legs, they now have to do the same to Utrecht. They couldn't be in much better form - undefeated in 10 with seven wins and three draws.

The Reds have won their last four straight at their home of De Grolsch Veste, scoring 13 goals in the process, including three against PSV. They do have a couple of injuries though as Robbert Schilder joins Wout Brama on the sidelines. It is also worth noting that when they last faced Utrecht at home, they lost 4-2.

Utrecht themselves couldn't be in much better form - six straight victories and just one defeat in nine. That loss was a 6-0 hammering at AZ but they were forced to play an hour of that match with nine men after Kali and Wuytens saw red early on.

Jan Wouters side won the away leg in the semi-final stage of this play-off as they beat Heerenveen 1-0 and throughout all their league fixtures this season, they avoided defeat in 66.66% of them.

FC Twente are incredibly short here at around the 1.63 mark. They have home advantage of course, but they don't warrant being that price given the form on offer. It's definitely an intriguing clash that's available on Betfair Live Video from 19:45 but I couldn't back a home win at those odds, and that's why I'm making Twente my lay of the day.

Recommended Bet

Lay Twente v Utrecht @ 1.63