De Graafschap are without their manager at the moment. Adrie Poldervaart was admitted to hospital this week for undisclosed reasons and although he reckons he is on the mend, his return date is unknown at this point. Without Poldervaart, assistant manager Richard Roelofsen was in charge, De Graafschap had no problems going past amateur side De Treffers in the cup this past Tuesday.

Poldervaart has been under pressure anyway, as De Graafschap are massively underperforming this season. In this game they face another one of the historic teams in the second division, NAC Breda. NAC are on the way up again after a terrible first half of the season. They appointed manager Peter Hyballa recently and despite two defeats in three games, they have been improving from 2022. In the round of 16 match in the cup against top flight side SC Heerenveen, NAC were in the lead for half the game, before their cup dream was crushed by former player Sydney van Hooijdonck. In the league game against a revived ADO Den Haag, NAC also deserved more, so they are a team to be taken into account for the remainder of the season.

In their own stadium, in front of the 17k fans that fill up the stadium every two weeks, NAC Breda should be favoured to get a result against De Graafschap who will still be without their manager.

Willem II and FC Dordrecht are two sides who seem to have improved over the past weeks. Both sides struggled massively scoring goals in the first half of the season. Willem II sacked manager Kevin Hofland and under his assistant Reinier Robbemond things have changed. Especially going forward, they seem a different side from the time under Hofland, as their attacking play is now more open and even a bit frivolous at times. The 3-0 victory over higher ranked FC Eindhoven and 5-1 win over Helmond Sport were by no means flattering, and that bodes well for this match.

FC Dordrecht seemed doomed when they lost their best player, Aliou Balde. Balde had been responsible for the entire goal production in the last seven games, so when Feyenoord recalled him from loan to sell him to Switzerland, that seemed like a blow. However, Feyenoord sent Tidjany Toure in return and the winger scored twice on his professional debut last week. With Tim Receveur and Abdallah Aberkane they signed some more quality players in January, which led them to a surprisingly easy 4-0 victory over promotion candidate FC Eindhoven. Just like Willem II, the ease in which they found the goal in the last game stood out.

Willem II were the most defensive team in the league under the previous manager and that still seems to be priced into the odds to a certain extent. Nevertheless, overs seems the best shout for this game between two teams that have worked on their offensive game in the past weeks.

FC Eindhoven were doing great at the start of this year, but the hard fought victory over Heracles Almelo two weeks ago turned out to be costly. Eindhoven’s best players from that moment, Charles-Andreas Brym and Evan Rottier, were sent off in that game and both received a two-match ban. Those two matches were against FC Dordrecht (4-0) and Willem II (5-1), matches that ended in pretty shocking defeats.

Eindhoven were unrecognisable in those two games. The two attacking players will be back for this game, but you can’t completely put the bad performances down to Brym and Rottier, as especially the defence was a shambles in both games.

This Friday, they are again facing a tough challenge, with a match against Almere City. Almere City have been one of the best teams this year. After a difficult start to the season, they have now become a serious promotion candidate. The Eerste Divisie gets unexpected results all the time, and the Almere home defeat last week at the hands of a weak Jong PSV was one of them, but that was completely against the run of play, so Almere can’t be underestimated here.

Despite Brym and Rottier returning for FC Eindhoven, I don’t see them turn this around that easily, so Almere should be able to get a result here.