4 more rounds to go and some games will have some consequences! First let's have a look at the table as it is at the moment!

The top 6 will play play-off 1, where they will battle it out who will be crowned the champions of the Jupiler Pro League. At the start of Play-off 1, all points will be halved. That's why each game still counts!

The number 7 up to 15 will play play-off 2. Here they will start all with 0 points. 2 groups will be created and in each group 2 teams of the second league will be added. The winners of both groups will face each other in a Play-off 2 final and the winner of this final will play against the number 5 of Play-off 1 for the last remaining European ticket!

Complicated, isn't?

Round 27

Like I did say, some really interesting game on the calender for this weekend. Let's first start with the Friday Evening game!

A very interesting and important game!
Gent really needs to win to keep their hopes on participating in Play-Off alive. Standard on the other side needs one more win to be mathematically sure. The game between Gent and Standard are always strange ones.
This time Gent is under pressure and even the board has paid the players a visit to emphasize the importance of Play-Off 1. It looks like most players are already busy with the cup final and that they do consider the season already a success.
Last week Gent surprisingly lost away at Waaslaand-Beveren, Standard won easily at home against Lokeren.

I do expect lots of goals in this game, but I don't have any clue who will win. I do think that Standard is a small favorite to take the 3 points. But a draw is maybe the most logical outcome.

Saturday games

Not the most interesting day of the round. Most team have nothing to play for anymore. The only question is if Lokeren will be sure if they are going down after Saturday or not. If they don't win and Oostende and Waasland-Beveren do win their games, they are doomed.
With the current form of Mouscron in mind, I don't gave them any chances. Maybe Oostende will not win from Cercle Brugge but still I wouldn't place bet on a prolonged stay of Lokeren in the Jupiler Pro League.

So let's go quickly to the Sunday games!

Sunday games

Besides Standard all other teams from within the top 6 will play their game on Sunday.

It kicks off with Anderlecht - Club Brugge. Anderlecht really needs to win and has the advantage that Club Brugge had a tough away game in Europe yesterday. There were crushed by Salzburg and I do wonder if some all wounds will be healed on Sunday! It also looks that Leko is loosing the confidence of the supporters, which never is a good sign.

Anderlecht on the other side has problems with winning games back-2-back. Last week they won the game at Antwerp with a goal in the dying minutes of the game. It looks that the coach change didn't improve the team at all. Anderlecht even has dropped a place since Rutten took over!

Both teams are having some injured players but I will give Anderlecht a small advantage. They had the complete week to focus on this game, while Club Brugge had a midweek game. If Anderlecht does loose they will still remain on the last PO1 place but it will become tough!

Genk and Antwerp! The form of both teams are decreasing, only only if we have a look at the points they did loose after the winter break but also if we do look at the quality of their play! Antwerp is physical strong team with some great technical football players. Genk on the other side has more a passing and dribbling game! But Genk is wounded after their European exit. Not only mentally but also they will be missing some key players.
2 players did need to be substituted with the flu, while Vukovic probably has broken some ribs. Add the that the uncertainty of what will happen with Pozuelo (will he leave or will he stay) and you will find a team which in trouble. In their last 2 games they just couldn't find any solution or free man anymore. Last Thursday they had only one chance in the first half and in the second half only in the added time of the game.
Antwerp will for sure try to copy the style of Praha, will lot's of forward pressing and will give Genk not a milimeter of free space! I do think that this will turn out into a low scoring game, with a little advantage for the guest!

Last game of the round is between St Truiden and Charleroi. For both teams it is simple. If St Truiden wins and Charleroi loses than St Truiden will have 90% chance on PO 1 and Charleroi, mmhh, let's say 1%.
The game is more crucial for Charleroi than for St Truiden, which still has some room for a misstep. If Charleroi looses they will be 8 points behind St Truiden and with the 2 following games against Genk and Antwerp it will become a mission impossible. But also if they do win, not much will change! They still will be 2 points behind St Truiden and they still will have 2 tough opponents in the next 2 games. Personally I do think that Charleroi will not make it to PO1 regardless of the outcome of this game!
St Truiden has to form and the advantage because they do play their home games on artificial grass.

The model Prediction

Just like the last 3 round, I will follow the Over/Under model based on the results of the last 3 season blindly and place a Goliath 5 fold bet.

The results of this experiment of the last 3 were simple. Null return :( Let's see if we can improve this this week!

Cheers,

Peter