Three games we are far into these Play Offs, which we will double in one week. Just like in the league, you can see that the six teams are evenly matched and no clear picture can be made yet between which teams it will go.

KVC Westerlo

If we had to compare the results in the regular league – a few months ago we lost against Dender and Charleroi and got one point against OHL – we would currently already have gained one more point. The wins should be coming now, as both at Standard (1-2) and KV Mechelen (2-4) we went home with the three points earlier. Evidently this was not the case, as Standard only lost to Anderlecht, Genk and Gent before at home.

‘We grabbed our moments at Standard’ our coach said at the press conference yesterday. Nice fact is that in the last eight meetings we did not lose against the Rouches. As expected, Alfie Devine and Allayhar Sayyadmanesh appeared in the starting line-up against Charleroi after their strong substitutions and Luka Vuskovic also rejoined the team at the expense of ageing blanket Roman Neustädter.

Should Bryan Reynolds get playing minutes at Standard, this will be his 100th game in the shirt of our Kemphians, in which he managed to score three goals and also deliver 13 assists. In the current core, only Koen Van Langendonck (223) and Thomas Van Den Keybus (113) do better. This puts our American Eagle at 39th in the all-time rankings with the prospect of 12 places higher if he still gets playing minutes in every game in these Play Offs.

Only Jordan Bos and Bakary Haidara are still out.

Standard Liege

Coach Ivan Leko has made Standard a solid eleven that barely gets goals against, but also barely scores itself. After 30 match days, they managed to score 22 goals (worst in class) and had a negative goal difference of -13.

In the POs, like us, they drew twice, at home against Mechelen (2-2) and at Dender (1-1) and lost the Walloon derby in Charleroi by the smallest score (1-0).

Two players stand out: Swiss Andi Zeqiri, who is the top shooter with 9 goals, 4 of which were decisive for a win, and German Dennis Eckert Ayensa. He scored 7x, four of which were the ‘match opener’.

They recorded their last home victory on 26 January, followed by losses to Genk and Anderlecht and draws against Antwerp and Mechelen.

Referee

Since his professional debut in 2019, Wesli De Cremer has whistled 21 matches for our Kemphans. This puts us in his personal first place. Of the 6 wins we achieved, 5 of them were at the Kuipje and 1 at the Jan Breydel against Cercle Brugge. Earlier this season, he was our match-winner at STVV, where we lost 1-0. A Standard vs Westerlo is not yet on his CV.

Text and statistics: Peter Boons