The final whistle in Ghent was sharp to the ears, but tasted like a sour mat in the mouth. Disillusionment too, as a stunt was very close. Only one second lasted too much this match. The key is to emphasise the positives and work on those beauty mistakes that result in a goal against. “Will be fine with you” we heard said in Ghent corridors.

KVC Westerlo

It may be said that the gameplan was right. At the press conference, Hein Vanhaezebrouck let it be noted that our Kemphans had indeed played a very good game. Gent lost their previous 2 home games (against Club Brugge and KV Mechelen), but it was Westerlo who had left the most impression on him. Nice words anyway from the always very critical home coach.

The first goal again fell at a very unfortunate moment, but was a gift from the referee. He whistled foul that there was none. The 6 minutes of extra time were also increased to one minute longer, not to mention the 7 yellow cards our team had to deal with.  Romeo Vermant scored on his debut and you can feel from all sorts of factors that he is comfortable at our club, which will surely benefit his performance.

This match also marks the farewell of Lukas Van Eenoo. There is no better match to do so. Lukas ended up playing 179 games for our Kemphans and you could also admire him 148x in the Cercle Brugge shirt.

Did you know?

• We already got ahead 12 times in a game this season, which would have meant sixth place in the standings, but we ended up walking away with the full win only five times, which in turn makes us the worst student in the class.
• Just the top six scoring more goals than us?

Cercle Brugge

Bosnian Austrian forward Miron Muslic has made the Bruges greenbacks a difficult team to play against. They are also still fighting for a play-off 1 ticket. They have scored 27 goals so far, of which top marksman Kevin Denkey has accounted for 16. This Togolese came to Cercle in the winter of 2021 and has already managed to score 40x in 107 games. If he adds 6 more, he will move into third place all-time among Brugge players in terms of goals, after Josip Weber (135) and Dirk Beheydt (73).

Five players can (almost) always count on a starting place since the start of the season. Goalkeeper Warleson has a save percentage of 75%, by comparison that the least beaten goalkeeper (Simon Mignolet) has a percentage of 73.5% . So apart from the aforementioned Denkey, you can always put Hugo Siquet, Jesper Daland and Thibo Somers among the starting eleven. Siquet and Daland, by the way, were able to receive their first cap for their country this season. 

All-time this will be the 20th encounter at the Kuipje, of which Cercle have won six, including as many as three times in the last four clashes.

Bert Put

• From Limburg
• Sits at 176 matches since 2017
• Fled Standard vs Westerlo (0-0) this season
• Fourth-time presence at the Kuip: Beerschot (1-1), Genk (0-1) and Standard (3-0)
• Including this match, Cercle Brugge, along with Eupen, will be the team he has already whistled the most, 22 times.

Text and statistics: Peter Boons