Heracles vs Ajax prediction: NETHERLANDS: Eredivisie betting tips on match 2024-01-27 20:00.
Heracles Almelo has regularly made things difficult for Ajax Amsterdam in recent years and was even labelled as a banana skin of the Amsterdam team for some time, but the last two meetings were won by the record champion with a difference of three goals. Before the winter break, Heracles lost six of their last seven competition matches (W1), but the first two games of 2024 already earned the team four points, creating a small but important gap with the danger zone.
The Herac team recently added Jordy Bruijn to the squad and last weekend he was immediately presented with two big opportunities in his debut match. However, Jizz Hornkamp, who had been out of action since the first round, turned out to be the only Herac player who scored a goal in the 1-1 draw against Volendam. The problems mainly lie at the back, because Heracles is the team after Volendam that has conceded the most goals (41) in the competition.
Stability seems to be slowly returning to Ajax. John van 't Schip's team is on the rise and has won six of their last seven matches (D1). The team is therefore back in fifth place and the gap to number four AZ is only three points. The fact that both Twente and AZ did not earn full points in the previous round should make the Amsterdam team extra hungry to continue this good trend.
New signing Jordan Henderson is still a doubt for this weekend, but they are certainly very pleased to see the 81-time England international at work in the capital. With his experience he must provide hope in the aftermath of the worst period in club history. There is still a lot of improvement to be made defensively, as Ajax has failed to keep their goal clean in their last eight matches in all competitions and has conceded more goals in the Eredivisie than clubs such as PEC Zwolle, Fortuna Sittard and FC Utrecht. That's not to mention the even greater difference with the other clubs in the top five!
Players to watch: Brian Brobbey has scored a total of eight times in his last six matches against Dutch teams. Meanwhile, Mario Engels registered his first goal for Heracles in the previous meeting with Ajax and has since scored three more times in this competition.
Hot stat: Ajax failed to return a clean sheet in their last 11 official away matches, despite also scoring in ten of those games.