There are several 2019/20 UEFA Europa League qualifying matches to look forward to on Thursday night. We have reached the third round, second leg stage of the qualifiers and there is just one round remaining to negotiate to reach the group stages.
One of the standout fixtures this week sees PSV Eindhoven host FK Haugesund at the Philips Stadion. The Dutch club come into the game with a 1-0 lead from the first leg in Norway. A 24th minute penalty scored by Steven Bergwijn was enough to give PSV Eindhoven a narrow lead to defend in-front of their own fans.
PSV Eindhoven started their domestic league campaign last weekend and were held to a 1-1 draw at FC Twente. They made no mistake in their first home Eredivisie match of the season as they defeated ADO Den Haag 3-1 to move into 6th place in the league.
It has not been an easy start to the season for PSV Eindhoven and they were eliminated from the Champions League qualifiers by FC Basel of Switzerland. They also lost 2-0 to Ajax in the Dutch Super Cup but have remained undefeated in their last three games.
Home form is very good and trends show PSV Eindhoven have won eleven and drawn one of their last twelve competitive matches at the Philips Stadion. That includes both their home games this season, one of which was in the Champions League against FC Basel and the other in the Eredivisie.
🌪 @PSV pic.twitter.com/cpmKruqs0x— Zakaria Aboukhlal (@ZAboukhlal) August 13, 2019
🌪 @PSV pic.twitter.com/cpmKruqs0x
FK Haugesund have left themselves with a difficult task in this second leg. They are not in the best of form and trends show they have failed to win any of their last four matches. In addition to the 1-0 defeat at home against PSV Eindhoven in the Europa League they have lost to Sturm Graz away from home 2-1 in the same competition and 1-0 at home to Ranheim, which was in the Eliteserien on the weekend.
FK Haugesund are currently sitting 8th in the Eliteserien table and are 15 points adrift of the leaders having played the same number of games.
Away form shows one win in the last five, which came at Cliftonville in the earlier stages of Europa League qualifying. Since then they have lost at Sturm Graz and been held 1-1 by Stabaek in the Norwegian league.
Team news and PSV Eindhoven have doubts over several players including Hirving Lozano, Gaston Pereiro, Sam Lammers, Yannick Van Osch and Ryan Thomas.
FK Haugesund will travel without the trio of Alexander Stølås, Dennis Horneland and Ben Karamoko who are expected to miss the remainder of the season due to injury. There is also a doubt over Fredrik Knudsen who has a leg injury.
PSV Eindhoven will expect to complete the job with a comfortable home win. Having kept a clean sheet in the away leg, we should see another one here and a couple of goals will be enough to see the hosts win and progress to the playoffs.