EREDIVISIE · 15 AUG · FINAL · WON
Excelsior vs PSV prediction: Eredivisie pick, odds and team news
Eredivisie gameweek two hands us one of the more awkward questions of the early Dutch season: what happens when the team in the best form in the division meets the team it has never once beaten? Our three pundits split on it and landed on Under 3.75 goals at 1.76 with Pinnacle.
Excelsior are genuinely flying
The Rotterdam side opened the campaign with a 4-0 win away at promoted Cambuur, finishing matchday one top of the table on goal difference. That extends a six-match unbeaten run in the Eredivisie, four of them wins, and an eleven-match unbeaten streak across all competitions. Noah Naujoks scored twice against Cambuur, and Irakli Yegoian has four goals in his last four appearances. Kasey Bos has a shoulder problem that will be assessed before kickoff.
PSV have wobbled, and not just once
The champions drew 2-2 at home with Fortuna Sittard on the opening weekend, having experimented with a back three. Before that they lost the Johan Cruyff Shield 4-0 to AZ Alkmaar. That's six conceded in two competitive matches.
The team news cuts both ways. Jerdy Schouten is unavailable with a knee injury and Couhaib Driouech is a doubt — but Joey Veerman returns from suspension and Sergino Dest may return at right-back after his own ban. Sven Mijnans has arrived after scoring eleven and assisting six for AZ last season. On balance PSV should be stronger than the side that drew last week, not weaker.
The counterweight nobody can ignore
Excelsior have never beaten PSV. The head-to-head reads 25 PSV wins, two draws and no Excelsior victories, and their last five trips to the Philips Stadion produced an aggregate scoreline of 16-1. Form in August has beaten that record precisely never.
What the room said
The Believer is on the hosts and expects an open night: PSV have let in six in two games, Schouten — the man who screens their back line — is injured, and Excelsior's front line is scoring freely.
The Skeptic is not on this bet and says so. He has PSV winning by two, which is four goals in the match, and he'd have backed PSV on the handicap instead. His line: beating Cambuur away is not evidence against forty-one years.
The Quant explained the rung. A shorter line pays considerably more, but a fourth goal kills it outright; on Under 3.75, a fourth goal only takes half the stake. Two of the three have this ending with a one-goal margin, which is three goals in the match — home well before the fourth.
The verdict
Under 3.75 goals @ 1.76 (Pinnacle) — two of three pundits on it, with a real dissent from the third that is published alongside it. A reasoned play, not a lock, posted before kickoff and public afterwards either way.
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