Thursday lunchtime brings us further action from the Chinese Super League and features this upcoming clash between basement dwellers, Hebei and their mid-table visitors, Wuhan Zall, when the two teams face each other at Hebei’s Langfang City Sports Center with both sides needing all three points for differing reasons.
Having made a disastrous start to the new Chinese top flight campaign by losing each of their opening six league matches on the trot, Hebei find themselves sitting bottom of the division without recording a single point to date.
Defeats to Wuhan Three Towns, Wuhan Zall (away), Shanghai Port, Shanghai Shenhua, Guangzhou FC and Wuhan Three Towns (again), have inflicted early damage upon Hebei and despite holding home advantage at their Langfang City Sports Center on Thursday lunchtime, this looks like being another tough assignment for the hosts.
Indeed, the bigger picture shows Hebei have failed to win any of their last 15 matches on the trot, losing their last 10 games on the trot, so the prospects of a home win here seem very unlikely.
Onto Wuhan Zall and the visitors have fared better than their hosts as they sit in a mid-table position of 9th in the Chinese Super League standings although they too have hit something of a speed-bump in recent times, after suffering three league defeats on the trot.
Recent defeats to Wuhan Three Towns, Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai Port have prevented Wuhan Zall from making inroads into the upper half of the domestic top flight.
But they will be hoping they can rekindle the type of form which brought them three wins on the trot previously.
The visitors had strung together an impressive trio of victories against Shanghai Port, Hebei (at home) and Guangzhou.
So they know they are very capable of turning their current situation around here on Thursday.
Although results away from home have been pretty inconsistent with Wuhan Zall managing to collect just three away wins out of their last 14 outings on the road, the visitors have won two of their last three matches on their travels.
And they will no doubt fancy their chances of chalking up another three points here on Thursday lunchtime at the Langfang City Sports Center, as Wuhan look to put pressure on the top three clubs.