European NAP: Goals to flow in Eredivisie encounter

EUROPEAN football fanatic Mark O'Haire (@MarkOHaire) is heading to Holland for his next best bet from the continent.

Vitesse v Feyenoord | Sunday 10th March 2019, 13:30 | Premier Sports

The Eredivisie is Europe’s highest-scoring league this season, averaging a bonkers 3.48 goals per-game. A whopping 67% of those fixtures featured Over 2.5 Goals with 43% even breaking the Over 3.5 Goals barrier; overall Both Teams To Score winners stands at 55% and Sunday’s showdown between Vitesse and Feyenoord looks ripe for a slice of goals action.

Surprisingly, the goals line has been set rather low for this encounter. With PSV Eindhoven and Ajax ominously ahead in the quest for a top-two finish and Champions League qualification, Feyenoord, AZ Alkmaar and Vitesse are battling it out for third place. The hosts can reduce the gap to Feyenoord to four points with a victory here.

Feyenoord are shorter than 6/5 to seal top honours across the board despite taking top honours in only three of their 12 away days. Performance data and Expected Goals (xG) figures also but these two sides almost side-by-side so there’s evidence to suggest Vitesse could upset the odds with a positive result on Sunday.

However, I’m happier taking a goals approach and my NAP has to be the 4/6 (Sportingbet) available on Both Teams To Score. It’s as short as I’ll ever go when selecting a NAP, and on this occasion, the selection is dripping in goals value.

Get with the goals

Vitesse, coached by former Russia and Hull boss Leonid Slutsky, have delivered Over 2.5 Goals profit in 17 of their 24 league outings – 17/24 (71%) of those contests also produced Both Teams To Score winners with the average goals per-game tally sitting at a hefty 3.17.

If we delve into Vitesse’s encounters in Arnhem, we can see the hosts’ goals per-game average leaps up to 3.83 with 10/12 (83%) returning BTTS winners, and a further 10/12 (83%) also landing for Over 2.5 Goals hunters.

Expected Goals (xG) data is also in our favour with Vitesse outings sitting at 3.06 overall, increasing to 3.22 on home soil. The hosts haven’t failed to score here since November and have notched at least twice in seven of their last nine, as well as in all bar three of their 12 matches in Arnhem. However, Slutsky’s side have recorded a solitary home clean sheet.

Feyenoord have only fired three blanks since the opening weekend of the season, although the Rotterdam giants have only twice kept their sheets clean since the start of December. On the road, the visitors have recorded one shutout and leaked twice or more in half of their 12 tussles – nine of those crossed the Over 2.5 Goals barrier and 8/12 (67%) saw BTTS.

Putting the two teams’ home/away records together, we can see that Over 2.5 Goals has banked in 16/24 (67%) respective outings, with both sides scoring in a huge 18/24 (75%). The duo have combined to keep only two clean sheets in that sample.

Twelve of Vitesse's last 13 have seen BTTS pay-out, as have five of Feyenoord's six meetings with teams in the top five, and I'd be amazed if this doesn't go off a lot shorter.