Dutch EreDivision
2008-11-09 - AZ Alkmaar vs FC Twente
A Sports Betting Pick by Erik
Sun. 9/11, 14.30 Alkmaar
AZ are the leaders in the ranking with the team recording an excellent series of games with six wins and a draw in their last seven games. After losing the first two games of the season AZ has revived and have proven to be very hard to beat with El Hamdaoui being in excellent form scoring 12 goals in his last seven games.
FC Twente is currently on the seventh place in the ranking with the team losing 0-2 at home to Ajax last weekend. During the midweek FC Twente lost their away game in the UEFA Cup to Manchester City 3-2 and the team will be looking to get back on track on Sunday against AZ. However, they could have wished for a better opponenent with AZ being hard to beat at the moment.
AZ has quite some absentees for this game with Dembele (att), Schaars (mid, doubtful) and Jaliens def, doubtful) being the most important ones with all three players being regular first selection players. FC Twente has no new injury problems with only Rajkovic (def) and Rendla (mid) missing out since the start of the competition.
Looking at the previous results we see kind of a mixed collection of results with both teams recording a goalless draw last season with AZ winning two from their last five home games and drawing three. FC Twente is still without a win in Alkmaar since the season 2002/2003 and to be honest I can not see them getting a result in Alkmaar this season as well.
AZ is on a very good roll with with various players being able to score and the 3-3 on the road to SC Heerenveen was quite unlucky with the hosts scoring the equalizer in the stoppage time of the second half.
FC Twente comes back from a midweek game in England in which they wasted quite some energy chasing for the equalizer which may affect their performance on Sunday.
Odds are fair but do not represent much value in my opinion, but I will take AZ to win this game with medium stakes because of their current form, home advantage, better fitness and the scoring abilities of El Hamdaoui.
The Pick :
AZ Alkmaar to win
BEST BETTING TIP :
Take AZ ALKMAAR to win $1.80 or more
