Round 13 of the 2023 Chinese Super League sees Tianjin Jinmen Tiger welcome Qingdao Jonoon to the Olympic Sports Center Stadium on Wednesday afternoon.
Off the back of respective victories last time out, both teams head into this with the wind in their sails and should serve up an exciting encounter.
Match preview
Tianjin Jinmen secured a safe passage into the next round of the Chinese FA Cup thanks to a 2-0 victory over Wuxi Wugou on Saturday at the Wuxi Sports Center.
Weijun Xie opened the scoring just shy of the hour mark to give Yu Genwei's men the lead after which Xie grabbed his second of the game eight minutes from time.
Prior to that, the Tigers played out a goalless stalemate against Chengdu Rongcheng and currently sit fourth in the Chinese Super League table, nine points off division leaders Shanghai Port.
Awaiting them next is the challenge of an opposing outfit who are yet to lose any of the last six editions of this fixture dating back to 2011, winning four of them.
Unbeaten in six straight home matches on home turf leading up to Wednesday's contest, the hosts have proven themselves to be a real force to reckon with in front of their fans.
Qingdao Jonoon showed great resolve to see off the threat of lower league side Dandong Tengyue on penalties when the teams faced off on Friday.
After breaking the deadlock through Long Zheng, Antonio Carreno's men conceded a late equaliser to Diran Yao before Chaoyang Liu held his nerve from 12 yards to settle matters.
This came off the back of a 1-0 defeat against Shanghai Shenhua, which leaves the Sea Bulls bottom but one in the standings, albeit just one point adrift of safety.
Having recently ended a seven-game losing streak on the road, Wednesday's visitors now go in search of back to back wins on the road for the first time since the turn of the year.
Team News
Following his impressive two-goal haul against Wuxi Wugou, Tianjin's Weijun Xie will be expected to retain his place in attack alongside Farley Rosa.
Twenty-five-year-old Yumiao Qian made his return to the hosts' bench in the aforementioned game, and he could feature for the first time in 2023 here.
Junshuai Liu served his one-game suspension last time out, making the defender now eligible to play a part for Qingdao Jonoon in this one.
Evans Kangwa has missed each of the last two matches through a muscle problem, which will see the Zambian international sit out Wednesday's clash as well.
Tianjin Jinmen Tiger possible starting lineup:
Xu; Chang, Yang, Andujar, Han, Ming; Wang, Guo, Merida, Rosa; Xie
Qingdao Jonoon possible starting lineup:
Mou; Liu, Andrejevic, Liu; Xu, Saric, Long, Zhang; Tabekou, Brown, Chen
We say: Tianjin Jinmen Tiger 2-0 Qingdao Jonoon
Having let in just one goal across their last four matches, Tianjin will back themselves to come away from this one unscathed. We are backing the hosts to stroll to a comfortable win come the end of the 90 minutes.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
