This first match of the Friday is immediately an interesting one, because both will have an important change in the line-up in comparison to the last match they played. FC Eindhoven claimed a hard fought victory over Heracles Almelo last week, but it came at a cost. The two most in-form attacking Eindhoven players, Evan Rottier and Charles-Andreas Brym were both sent off. Brym accepted a three-match ban, so he’ll definitely be out, but Rottier, good for three goals in four games in January, appealed his two-match ban and if that isn’t resolved before Friday, he’ll be able to play this game awaiting the result of his appeal.

FC Dordrecht are one of the worst teams in the league, but the player keeping them from being rock bottom was Feyenoord loanee Aliou Balde. The 20-year-old from Senegal scored eight times for them in 15 games. Three times that was the only goal in a 1-0 victory and in the six games since the World Cup break, the three goals from Balde were the only goals Dordrecht scored. Feyenoord were never that happy with Balde, so when Swiss second division side FC Lausanne Sport offered almost a million euros for his services, Feyenoord didn’t hesitate to let him go, leaving Dordrecht without their most important player.

Feyenoord sent Tidjani Touré to Dordrecht to replace Balde, and although he might be a decent player, it will take some time to see whether he’ll do as well. Missing Brym and possibly Rottier isn’t good for Eindhoven, but it is priced in the market, making the odds for a victory for the number three in the league pretty decent and against Dordrecht without Balde, they seem to be the clear favourites.

De Graafschap are not having a great season. Since October, the pressure on manager Adrie Poldervaart is already quite high, but it is said that the club doesn’t really have the money to sack their manager, so unless they start to go on a really shocking run he’ll keep the benefit of the doubt. And that is exactly what is going on now, they picked up five points from the last three games and are still within shooting distance of the play-offs. One thing that hasn’t been a problem recently is scoring goals, they have always created a decent amount of chances and there is not too much wrong with the twelve goals in five matches in January.

That is different for Telstar. They are the least conceding team from the bottom half of the table, but also don’t score that easy. They forgot about that entire concept of low-scoring games for a bit last week in the 5-3 victory over MVV and showed in that game that they know perfectly well how to play against a wobbly defence. Against Telstar they recorded 31 goal attempts, of which 16 went on target.

De Graafschap are one of those teams with a fairly shaky back line and goalkeeper Hidde Jurjus hasn’t been inspiring much confidence either recently. That’s why it is far from unlikely that this will be a game with a decent amount of goals, so I’d put my money on overs for this game.

The match between ADO Den Haag and NAC Breda is between two historic clubs in decline, who both had a good start to this year. Since the first half of the season was so bad, they are both doing below expectations, with a ninth place spot for NAC and a 14th spot for ADO. ADO signed a new goalkeeper with Sonny Stevens and that was probably necessary, because first choice Hugo Wentges will still be out for a while and the club don’t deem Luuk Koopmans good enough.

NAC Breda signed manager Peter Hyballa as a replacement for Robert Molenaar and he has made some changes already. He sent five players from the first team that he doesn’t want to use back to the youth team, including Alex Plat. Plat had been appointed captain by Molenaar at the start of the season, but has fallen out of favour since.

Hyballa started his second spell at NAC well, with a 5-1 victory over a weak Jong AZ. He is known as a manager who is not afraid to stir things up and cause confrontations, and that can go well, but also terribly wrong, as history has shown. ADO manager Dick Advocaat is a lot more stable than that and with Thomas Verheydt, Ricardo Kishna and Joey Sleegers up front, they have a front three that when in form, should be able to compete for the title in this league. For this game, I expect ADO to continue their positive run and take the three points in their own home.

VVV are in good form this season and are a strong contender for a play-off spot in the race for promotion. Jong AZ aren’t that far behind, although they are ineligible for the play-offs. Jong AZ have some problems going into this game, goalkeeper Sem Westerveld is injured and Luuk Postma is suspended for this game. Apart from that, the side seems to have lost quite a few players in this winter break.

Zico Buurmeester, Fedde de Jong and Wouter Goes are getting a more permanent role with the first team. They might still feature for Jong AZ at times, but as the first team are playing on Saturday it is unlikely they’ll get game time in this one. Peer Koopmeiners, Vasilios Pavlidis, Robin Lathouwers and Soulyman Allouch left the side.

Lathouwers and Allouch joined today’s opponent VVV and especially for the latter that was surprising. Allouch is dubbed a fairly big talent in Dutch football, but he hadn’t made his first team debut yet and left to sign a permanent deal with VVV. It makes VVV the favourite to win this game, because Jong AZ will have to fit in a couple of young players from the under-18 side or players who haven’t featured much at all this season.

Manager Rick Kruys has made VVV a side that is incredibly difficult to beat, not known for their exciting football, but for a steady defence and doing the necessary up front to collect a decent amount of points. So, I’d favour VVV for a victory, but a point seems the minimum they’ll get.