Standard – KVC Westerlo

The Antwerp clash could by no means be called boring. Several VAR moments, missed and disallowed eleven-metres, goals conceded, which were initially validated and which the referee had to come back to, and finally MegaToby Alderweireld who finished us off twice with a crisp header. His analysis spoke volumes: we take the three points here on a thief, because Westerlo were better.

KVC Westerlo

Before the match, our coach was bombarded with the question, first 9 in 9 and now 2 in 12? Journalists are often looking for the negative, because wait dear Mr interviewer, that 2 in 12 was on visits to Ghent, Genk and Anderlecht and at home against black beast OHL. I want to know how many teams will salvage more points from this programme. If we analyse the last 5 games, there is no reason to panic at all. We create enough chances to score and in 3 of these 5 encounters the game was decided – to our disadvantage – in the last 5 minutes of the match.

As expected, coach Simons elected to replace the injured Griffin Yow with Allayhar Sayyadmanesh and Alfie Devine also appeared at the kick-off for the first time. Both players were among the top five better players after the match. A third Kemphaan who was in that list was Matija Frigan. Our deep striker first missed his 11-metre, after a nice parry by the Antwerp goalkeeper, and then brilliantly scored his second goal of the season.

In the early years, Standard out was agony. Between 1997 and 2015, we lost 15 times and drew 3 times. Only in recent years have we started to pick up points in Liege. Even if it must be said that we are still listed in the football history books with only one paltry victory in 24 Liege encounters, because forfeit victory last year we really don’t count.

From the sickbay, we can mention that 2 players will not make the referee sheet: Griffin Yow and Mathias Fixelles. The rest are selectable.

Standard Liege

Croatian coach Ivan Leko has established a solid defensive organisation with this Standard. In 8 games, they only conceded 3 goals and kept 6 nil. Young goalkeeper Epolo even has a 90.9% save percentage. On the other hand, they scored only 4x and are nicely listed in 7th place with 12 points.

The opponents they faced at home stadium were: Club Brugge (1-0), KV Mechelen (0-0), Beerschot (1-0) and Union (0-0) and on the road they played Genk (0-0), Kortrijk (1-0), OHL (2-0) and Dender (0-2).

Their starting line-up will consist of a 5-3-2, with 5 newcomers compared to last season. So which are those newcomers? Defenders Bosko Sutalo (ex-Atalanta and ex-Verona), David Bates (KV Mechelen) and Ilay Camara (RWDM), in midfield Marko Bulat (Dinamo Zagreb) and up front Andi Zeqiri, who came over from KRC Genk and was also briefly on the Westel radar.

Four other players were also in the core last year, but hardly got any playing minutes: goalkeeper Epolo (360 minutes), defender Ibe Hautekiet (146 minutes), striker Soufiane Benjdida (53 minutes) and midfielder Léandre Kuavita (0 minutes). They did play their matches regularly with SL16 in the Challenger Pro League.

Two players retained their places, right-back Marlon Fossey, who recently got to make his debut in Team USA and captain Aiden 0’Neill, a friend of our Jordan Bos.

Bram Van Driessche