A crunch relegation six-pointer sees Cambuur welcome Emmen to the Cambuur Stadion on Saturday evening in round 27 of the 2022-23 Eredivisie season.
Both teams are currently on a poor run of results and this weekend's contest represents the perfect opportunity for them to get back to winning ways.
Match preview
Cambuur were beaten for the third away game running with a humbling 4-1 defeat against SBV Excelsior at Van Donge & De Roo Stadion two Sundays ago.
Sjors Ultee's men found themselves four down heading into the interval courtesy of Leon Bergsma's own goal and strikes from Kenzo Goudmijn, Siebe Horemans and Lazaros Lamprou.
As a result, the Yellow-Blues remain rooted to the bottom of the Eredivisie table, seven points adrift of safety with just over a third of the season left to play.
Next up is the challenge of an opposing outfit who have only recorded one victory in the most recent nine editions of this fixture across all competitions.
Having picked up their first home win of the year in their last outing on home turf, Saturday's hosts now go in search of back to back victories in front of their fans for the first time since March 2022.
FC Emmen played out a 1-1 stalemate against lower league opposition PEC Zwolle in the teams' friendly meeting at De Oude Meerdijk on Friday.
Dick Lukkien's men fell behind to Lennart Thy's 71st-minute opener but managed to restore parity two minutes from time thanks to Jari Vlak's equaliser.
Just before that, the Kralingers fell to a 2-0 defeat against Sparta Rotterdam on March 18 and have now slipped to 16th place in the standings, two points away from safety.
Currently winless on the road since January, Saturday's visitors will need to get going away from home in their quest to steer clear of relegation danger.
Team News
Jeff Hardeveld, Mart Lieder and Maikel Kieftenbeld are all unavailable for selection as the Emmen trio continue to battle with knee injuries.
Oussama Darfalou and Metehan Guclu will also not be involved for the visitors due to injury, while Rui-Jorge Mendes remains without an appearance since late January.
Twenty-nine-year-old Mark Diemers has been directly involved in two of his side's last three goals away from home, making him one to look out for here.
Defender Maxim Gullit is not expected to play any part this weekend having failed to feature for Cambuur this term due to a long-term knee injury.
The home side will also be without the services of Silvester van der Water, but Marco Tol and Ben Rienstra could return to action in this one after they were both named on the bench last time out.
Cambuur possible starting lineup:
Ruiter; Bangura, Smand, Bergsma, Wermeskerken; Foor, Paulissen, Van Kaam; Mahi, Johnsen, Balk
Emmen possible starting lineup:
Van der Hart; Dirksen, Te Wierik, Araujo, Bouchouari; Vlak, Bernadou, Veendorp; Romeny, Diemers, Antonisse
We say: Cambuur 1-1 Emmen
Both sides have little margin for error heading into this weekend's game, and we are anticipating a nervy and cagey affair with little goalmouth action. That said, we are backing a share of the spoils with honours even at the end of the 90 minutes.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
