Play-Off A
Club Brugge - KAA Gent
Play-Off B2
Standard Liège - Germinal Beerschot
Club Brugge - KAA Gent
With Anderlecht dropping two points last night in Sint-Truiden, Club Brugge will be looking to close the gap at the top to six points with Blauw-Zwart still having to host the leaders at the Jan Breydelstadion. Tomorrow they take on closest competitors KAA Gent in a match that could all but decide second place for the hosts. Although the Belgian Cup is the stated priority for KAA Gent, Preud'homme has hinted that he will be pushing for the second place finish which would bring Champions League football to Oost-Vlaanderen.
Adrie Koster is without trio Daan Van Gyseghem, Mohamed Dahmane and Karel Geraerts. However, Ryan Donk may play as he has appealed against his ban and fellow centre-back Antolin Alcaraz returns from suspension. The debate over who will replace Geraerts is well underway. One option is to move Perisic back to midfield given his all-round qualities and include Vargas, Dirar and Kouemaha upfront. However utility-man Jeroen Simaeys also comes into contention should Club go for the cautious option.
Gent have a number of slight injury worries over goalkeeper Bojan Jorgacevic (back), centre-back Marko Suler (calf) and Christophe Grondin (ankle).
Prediction
Gent are unbeaten in 10 away games, however their last defeat on the road did come at the hands of Club Brugge. Much will depend on how Koster replaces Geraerts.
Club Brugge 2-2 KAA Gent
Standard Liège - Germinal Beerschot
Standard were knocked out of the Europa League by a superior HSV side on Thursday evening and now have only the final European ticket to play for. They come up against Antwerpen's premier side Germinal Beerschot in what will be an emotional occasion for the Daerden family as son Koen faces father Jos, the GBA manager.
Standard may come to rue fielding a second string side in Genk last week as there is a danger of the Limburg side running away with Group B2. Germinal Beerschot will have something to say about that and will hope that a second successive trip south of the linguistic border (last week GBA won in Charleroi) will deliver another win.
Les Rouches interim manager Dominique D'Onofrio is still without Steven Defour although the captain is close to a return. He is joined on the sidelines by striker Cyriac Gohi Bi and versatile left-sided player Cedric Collet. Milan Jovanovic looks set to pay the price for a run of poor form with the aforementioned Daerden set to come in on the left of Standard's midfield. De Ratten meanwhile are still without Bart Goor and King Osei Gyan as well as Bavon Tshibuabua and Guillaume François. However today's training session may well see Sherjill MacDonald at least fit enough for the bench which would provide a timely boost to GBA's attacking line.
Prediction
Standard were very disappointed to be knocked out of Europe having really fancied their chances. The fact that only 50 Standard tickets have been bought at the time of writing for the return game against GBA next week is perhaps indicactive of a club struggling to motivate itself at the end of a difficult league campaign. Whether Germinal Beerschot can capitalise fully is another matter.
Standard Liège 1-1 Germinal Beerschot
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