Matchday 11 of the 2023-24 Eredivisie season sees RKC Waalwijk and Feyenoord go head-to-head at the Mandemakers Stadion on Saturday evening.
Both teams head into this one off the back of respective defeats in their most recent outings and will be keen to get themselves back to winning ways.
Match preview
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Feyenoord suffered a first league defeat of the campaign as they were narrowly beaten 2-1 by FC Twente in Sunday's meeting at De Grolsch Veste.
Goals in either half from Manfred Ugalde and Ricky van Wolfswinkel left Arne Slot's men with a mountain to climb after which Lutsharel Geertruida pulled one back.
As a result, De Stadionclub have dropped down to fourth place in the Eredivisie table, seven points shy of division leaders PSV Eindhoven.
Coming up next is the challenge of an opposing outfit who are winless in the last nine meetings between the teams since 2014, losing seven of them.
Ahead of a crunch Champions League clash against Lazio three days later, Saturday's hosts now go in search of a morale-boosting win to help set the tone for their continental commitment.
Waalwijk were dumped out of the KNVB Beker by Utrecht in a 3-2 defeat when the sides went head-to-head at Stadion Galgenwaard on Tuesday evening.
Henk Fraser's men found themselves three down half an hour into the contest thanks to strikes from Oscar Fraulo, Mike van der Hoorn and Isac Lidberg before Chris Lokesa grabbed two goals to set up a thrilling finale.
Just before that, RKC came away empty-handed from their clash against Sparta Rotterdam and have now slipped to 13th place in the standings.
Off the back of consecutive wins in front of their fans leading up to Saturday's affair, the hosts have turned a corner on home turf and will fancy their chances of securing a positive result this weekend.
Team News
Waalwijk's Etienne Vaessen remains unavailable with a head injury he sustained in the aftermath of September's 1-0 victory over FC Twente.
Eighteen-year-old Chris Lokesa could be named in the hosts' starting lineup for the second game running after finding the back of the net twice in midweek.
Yankuba Minteh has missed the last two games for Feyenoord through a muscle injury, which will see the Gambia international sit out this weekend's game as well.
The visitors will once again be without the services of defender Gernot Trauner, meaning that Bart Nieuwkoop is set to retain his place in the XI.
RKC Waalwijk possible starting lineup:
Houwen; Meijers, Van den Buijs, Adewoye, Lelieveld; Roemeratoe, Oukili, Felida; Cleonise, Stevanovic; Kramer
Feyenoord possible starting lineup:
Bijlow; Hartman, Hancko, Geertruida, Nieuwkoop; Wieffer, Zerrouki, Timber; Paixao, Gimenez, Stengs
We say: RKC Waalwijk 0-3 Feyenoord
Feyenoord will be keen to bounce back from a rare defeat last time out, but their form on the road has been questionable of late. Nonetheless, we can see them emerging victorious come the end of the 90 minutes this weekend.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Top tip
Adepoju Marvellous
