Groningen travel to Heracles on Saturday hoping to keep the pressure up on those around them in the race to qualify for European football next season.
The away side will be hoping to exact revenge on their hosts, who inflicted a 1-0 defeat on them when the sides met in December.
Match preview
Heracles were on course for a second win on the bounce after taking a 2-0 half-time lead against PEC Zwolle on Wednesday, through strikes from Lucas Schoofs and Delano Burgzorg.
However, their hosts rallied in the second half to secure a hard-earned point, keeping the gap between them in the Eredivisie table at one point.
Frank Wormuth and his men now face a more difficult task against Groningen, but they will take inspiration from their aforementioned victory over them earlier in the season.
Top scorer Rai Vloet is without a goal in his last four games in all competitions, but his manager will not be panicking just yet as he has played relatively well in that time.
Groningen picked up their second league victory of the year on Wednesday, seeing off the challenge of ADO Den Haag in a comfortable 3-0 home victory.
Jorgen Strand Larsen was on target for his side once more, and the 20-year-old Norwegian is now up to eight Eredivisie goals for the season.
His goal was sandwiched in between strikes from Ramon-Pascal Lundqvist and Alessio Da Cruz which helped Danny Buijs's men to their fifth home win of the campaign, which is bettered by only Ajax, Vitesse and PSV Eindhoven.
If Groningen are to appear in Europe for the first time in five years, then keeping their good form at home will be a huge determining factor.
Saturday's visitors have lost on their last two trips to the Erve Asito, and they will be keen on avoiding a third defeat in a row.
Heracles Eredivisie form: WLWLWD
Heracles form (all competitions): LWLLWD
Groningen Eredivisie form: LDWDLW
Team News
With three goals in his last three games, Delano Burgzorg has come to the fore in recent weeks for the home side, and he will be looking to continue that rich vein of form.
Mats Knoester has missed Heracles' last four games with a knee problem which he suffered in the 4-0 demolition of Emmen two Wednesdays ago.
With him on the sidelines for the home team is Navajo Bakboord, who is yet to feature this season owing to a muscle injury he sustained over a year ago.
Another player who has been out for quite a while is Groningen's Arjen Robben, who has only featured in the first two games of the season since his return to the Hitachi Capital Mobility Stadion.
The legendary Dutch winger could well make his return to action soon, which would be a real boost for his side's quest to finish in the top four.
Heracles possible starting lineup:
Blaswich; Quagliata, Propper, Rente, Breukers; Schoofs, Azzaoui, De La Torre; Van De Water, Vloet, Burgzorg
Groningen possible starting lineup:
Padt; Gudmundsson, Van Hintum, Itakura, Angel Leal; Lundqvist, Van Kaam, Da Cruz; Suslov, Strand Larsen, El Hankouri
We say: Heracles 1-1 Groningen
While Groningen are arguably the better team, they have struggled more often than not in away games at Heracles, who will be keen to keep it that way.
Top betting tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Heracles win with a probability of 48.55%. A win for Groningen had a probability of 27.4% and a draw had a probability of 24.1%.
The most likely scoreline for a Heracles win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.5%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (9.37%) and 2-0 (7.88%). The likeliest Groningen win was 1-2 (6.81%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.29%). The actual scoreline of 1-0 was predicted with a 9.4% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Heracles would win this match.
