[Football- Netherlands 'Eredivisie'] 12.2/ 14:30 Vitesse-Utrecht

[MN]

[Football- Netherlands 'Eredivisie'] 12.2/ 14:30 Vitesse-Utrecht

Full disclosure: the recent H2H does not favour this pick, but both sides' post-World Cup form suggests this match may (finally) buck the trend.

Utrecht are in better form having scored goals and collected slightly more wins recently than Vitesse, but Utrecht has conceded goals away from home.

They conceded 9 goals in their last 3 away matches, albeit one of them being an outlier-type 5-5 result against league leaders Alkmaar. A closer comparison to Vitesse would be Utrecht's 2-2 draw away to Go Ahead Eagles last month, when Utrecht opened the scoring within 5 minutes, but conceded an equaliser less than 10 minutes later, and yet retook the lead to finish the first half 2-1 up.

Important to this pick landing, Utrecht's Greek forward Anastasios Douvikas is a key player in form: he leads the Eredivisie goalscoring chart (11 goals), and he's scored 5 goals in his last 3 league matches.

Vitesse should be able to score an early goal themselves. Their last 3 matches have gone over 3.5 with the team scoring 2+ goals in all of those matches, particularly against opponents with stronger defences than Utrecht: Heerenveen and Twente. HT BTTS hit in both of those matches and this is expected to continue against Utrecht.

Vitesse centre-back Davy Propper was handed his first start previously against FC Emmen and should retain his place in the starting lineup.

Utrecht's Bas Dost, Tommy St Jago, Ramon Hendriks, Bart Ramselaar and Django Warmerdam are all still out with injuries, and there may be minimal changes to Utrecht's starting lineup from their previous league match against Heerenveen.

BTTS (Both Teams to Score) @1,85 Bwin

FT 2:0