JPL Gameweek 5 (21/08 - 23/08) Preview

An exciting weekend of football lies ahead in Belgium beginning tonight when Racing Genk travel to newly-promoted STVV for the Limburg Derby. The game promises to be an interesting encounter, not least because it gives both sides the opportunity to go level on points with KV Oostende – the league leaders – ahead of their game away at Standard Liège on Sunday. But, more about that later…

Friday: Limburg Derby
 
Genk has so far performed inconsistently, whereas STVV has taken most people by surprise, most notably in their opening day victory over Club Brugge. Nevertheless, the Canaries do look like a strong outfit for a newly promoted side and offer two of the most enjoyable midfielders to watch in the JPL so far in Edmilson Junior & Dompé. Genk has significantly more resources but have looked fairly suspect defensively so far. Interestingly, both teams share exactly the same records after 4 games played: 2 wins, 1 draw & both teams lost to reigning champions Gent. STVV has yet to score a goal in the first-half of a JPL game, which possibly indicates they are slow starters, potentially taking a long time to suss out their opponent’s weaknesses. Close game to call, but I think STVV will manage to sneak it by a goal.

Finally: DERBYDAY! STVV - KRC Genk 20.30u! Komop STVV! Boodschap van de fans: If you give us 90 minutes we will give you a lifetime. #STVV #jpl #stvgnk

A photo posted by Sint-Truiden (@stvv373) on Aug 20, 2015 at 10:34pm PDT

 

Saturday: Mid-table battles and a chance for Brugge to bounce back

Saturday’s biggest game sees Club Brugge travel to Waregem to face Zulte Waregem, both teams have really flattered to deceive so far in the league. Brugge will be looking to exorcise some demons after their well-fought, but inevitably draining, Champions League loss to Manchester United midweek. I can see Z-W holding Brugge to a draw. Elsewhere, Mechelen host the other promoted side OH Leuven, which will give both sides a great opportunity to move further up the table, OHL will be more confident after their first league win last weekend. Waasland-Beveren host bottom-side Mouscron, a game that Mouscron will be desperate to mark their first victory of the season in. And, Westerlo face a tough match travelling to Charleroi, where the team in black-and-white will be desperate to return to winning ways having had no midweek Europa league ‘commitments’.

Sunday: Fun-day all round

Sunday will be fascinating throughout. The first game on the ‘day of rest’ sees Anderlecht entertain a Lokeren side that will be buoyed by its strong performance in their 2-0 defeat of Mechelen last Saturday. The home-side, however, goes into Sunday’s game in almost complete disarray (see Tweet below). After their defensively inept and rather embarrassing 3-1 loss to league leaders KV Oostende last Sunday, this week has seen enfant terrible Anthony Vanden Borre openly criticise his manager and teammates to the press, resulting in his demotion to the Youth Squad, which then led to some rather ugly back-and-forth, resulting in Team-Captain Silvio Proto denouncing AVdB’s actions and words as unacceptable. All the while, it seems like we are only getting half the picture and that Anderlecht is in fact in an even bigger shambles than the one its lacklustre and disorganised performances would so far suggest. Intriguing, indeed & I can see Lokeren causing even more upset at Les Mauves expense…

No team, no leaders on the pitch, no defence, silly system, unhappy players, fans are divided... Things are going great 😕😕 #rsca #sad

— Sp. Anderlecht news (@Sporting_AND) August 20, 2015

From one troubled giant to another, this time in the form of Standard Liège. Les Rouches’ sub-par start to the new domestic and European season under new-Coach Slavoljub Muslin continued on Thursday with a disappointing, and apparently inept, performance against Norwegian opponents Molde FK. The performance of Les Rouches was evidently so bad that Muslin intimated much of his team ran less (ie put less effort into the game) than Molde’s 40-year-old captain (see Tweet below also). Is Muslin best starting with a 4-4-2 system? Is he better with a 4-5-1? What is Knockaert’s best role? Apart from Knockaert, has anyone else actually shown up so far this season? These are all questions Standard, and, importantly, their supporters, will look for immediate answers this Sunday when they take on the undefeated current league leaders, KV Oostende. Oostende has been the real bright-spark of this season so far: scoring more than every other team and playing an exciting brand of football. They will be tough to beat riding high on the back of their 3-1 crushing of Anderlecht last weekend. I personally can’t see Standard getting anything more than a draw.

Muslin: "Leur capitaine de 40 ans a couru plus que certains de mes joueurs" http://t.co/o9kEXBQufk #rscl #zonerouche

— Zone Rouche (@Zonerouche) August 21, 2015

 
In the final game of the weekend Gent travels to Kortrijk, a fixture that Gent takes the upper-hand in based on last season’s encounters: out of the 4 meetings they had Gent won 3, Kortrijk 1. Gent has yet to really get out of first-gear so far this season, and it is high-time they make a statement. I’ll expect them to win.


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Lowzer's Low Country Revue: Club Brugge vs. KV Mechelen, 1 August 2015 - Gameweek 2 in the Jupiler Pro League 2015/16

Club Brugge have not had a great start to this season, but today managed to exorcise some early season demons as they dominated Mechelen, beating them 3-0.

The boys from Bruges in blue and black will probably be kicking themselves they didn’t score a couple more goals. But, with the second-leg of the Champions League qualifier against Panathinaïkos coming up on Wednesday, this was an important victory.

The first real chance of the game fell Club Brugge’s way. Four minutes in, Obbi Oularé’s head was met by De Bock’s cross, but he headed wide. Cissé – Mechelen’s only standout player in the game – then came close in the sixth minute of play forcing a smart save from Bruzzese. Mechelen looked like they came with the intention of being very physical – two of their players received yellow cards in the first 8 minutes of play for some vicious challenges. You can also see from the table below that Mechelen committed many more fouls than did Club Brugge.

Club Brugge’s front-three of Tuur Dierckx, Boli Bolingoli and Obbi Oularé entertained the home crowd with their energetic attacking football. Each individual in the trio offered something different: Dierckx’s trickery, Oularé’s physicality and aerial threat and Bolingoli’s ability to find space, which when combined certainly seems like a front-line to keep an eye on this season.

Dion Cools, who impressed going forward, on 43 minutes hit a good strike down low forcing a save from Mechelen’s GK Jean-François Gillet who’s parry fell to Ruud Vormer, who opted for a delicate lob rather than smashing home but his effort was cleared off the line and it felt like the frustration was building. Then, in stoppage time of the first half, the ball broke loose about 20 metres from the goal and Oscar Duarte drove a shot that took a huge deflection into the net: 1-0 Brugge, lucky? Yes, but it was the just reward for their persistent pressure.

Abdoulay Diaby replaced Bolingoli at the beginning of the second-half and made a fairly immediate impact eight minutes in when his excellent run into the Mechelen box was brought to an abrupt hault by Seth De Witte and the referee awarded Club Brugge with a penalty. Diaby converted with a left-foot smasher sailing past Gillet. Duarté was involved in Brugge’s second-goal when he got a hold of the ball in his own half and hit a tremendously weighted diagonal cross-field pass over the last Mechelen defender to match the blind-sided run made by the impressive Dierckx, who took it past the Malinois keeper and finished with consummate ease.

The Brugge barrage continued and Oularé and De Sutter will be disappointed they were unable to add to their team’s tally, but in the end Club Brugge will be relieved that they are back to winning ways and that they kept a clean sheet. This was a crucial victory that will give the team an important morale boost ahead of their difficult game against Panathinaïkos on Wednesday.

My man of the match: Tuur Dierckx

Match Statistics

	Club Brugge	KV Mechelen
Shots	20	7
Shots On Target	6	3
Fouls	17	24
Yellow Cards (Reds)	1 (0)	3 (0)
Corners	6	3
Offsides	5	2
Possession	51%	49%