North East United FC will look to fortify their claim for a place in the knock out stages of the league when the host Delhi Dynamos FC on Thursday at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium in Guwahati. Delhi Dynamos will look to finish in the top half of the table which is an achievable target if they get the better of North East Utd.

North East Utd. is in the fourth place in the table and can leapfrog over FC Goa to the third place with a win over Delhi Dynamos. They have played well this year to accumulate 6 wins and 5 draws in their 14 games and collect 23 points. They are three points ahead of Jamshedpur FC and ATK who are in the fifth and sixth positions respectively. They lost their last game away to Bengaluru which has set them back a little. Their coach Eelco Schattorie will be hoping to set things right this time against Delhi Dynamos. Bartholomew Ogbeche with ten Goals is their highest scorer and the second highest in the league after Ferran Corominas of Goa.

Delhi Dynamos FC is placed eighth on the league table and has 11 points from 2 wins and 5 draws in an equal number of games. They held FC Goa to a draw when the team from the western coast of India visited Delhi earlier in the month. Joseph Gambau is expected to start with Davilla in this match to give the Dynamos better chances of scoring goals which they seem to have trouble doing. Lallianzuala Chhangte, with five goals, is Delhi Dynamos leading scorer. Nandakumar S. has ably supported Chhangte from the right wing. The problem is that Delhi has leaked in 21 goals to North East's 16 and scored 3 goals fewer.

Head to Head

The two teams have played nine games against each other and have had three wins and three losses each with the other three games ending in draws. However North East is a better team this time then they were during the previous years. They put it past Delhi convincingly in a 2-1 win three months back when they went to Delhi.

Current form of the two teams

In the last six matches, the North East Utd has suffered two losses and has two wins. Delhi has two wins and three losses in the same number of games. While the North East Utd is going into the game with a loss to the highest ranked team, Bengaluru FC, Delhi Dynamos has held FC Goa, the highest scoring team of the league, to a goalless draw.

Players to watch

Bartholomew Ogbeche has scored the most goals for North East Utd and Federico Gallego has given him some able support. Schattorie hs mostly used Panagiotis Triadis as a substitute and it looks like that will be the case against Delhi too.

LallianZualla Chhangte and Ulises Davilla will be the players to watch for Delhi Dynamos along with Nandakumar S.

Prediction

This is going to be closely fought match. Counter attacks will be the order of the day and will make the match interesting to watch. I would stake my money on a double chance favouring a North East Utd. win or a draw (1X) at whatever odds that are available tomorrow on Betscorum.