At the end of January Lokeren appointed their 3rd coach this season. After Jankovic and Mathijssen, Emilio Ferreira tries to save Lokeren from playing the play-downs. He is a very good field coach (great tactics), but he lacks motivation skills. And i think Lokeren misses enthusiasm and conviction. Another surprise to me is the fact that they are bottom last in the standings. They sure have enough quality to be around spot number 10-12. This isnt the first time Emilio is coaching a Belgian club. He only coached one top team (Club Brugge) which wasnt a succes. All other teams were teams just like Lokeren. Players with not much quality. (some teams were even less than Lokeren). But with those teams he had much more "succes". Several times he managed to keep his team in first division while many people believed those teams were too weak to stay up. So Emilio has enough experience with these kind of teams. Like i said he is great in positioning players and tells his players what they must do and how to play (offensively as defensively). Some ex-players said that Emilio was the best coach they worked with. That is why he got his chance at Club Brugge. But his lack of communication was one of the reasons he got sacked there. Leko (GBA) and Mokulu (Oostende, also 2nd div.) were 2 late signings by Lokeren. Leko`s (midfielder) passing and shooting skills can become very important on corners and free kicks. A bit hard to say who will play under the new coach. I think he wont change all that much. We may expect Copa in goal. His injuries in 2009 and his presence at the Africa Cup is one of the reasons Lokeren has so little points. He may act like a clown sometimes, but he is a much better GK than Lazic. Dupré, Doll, Strul an El Mouatass may appear at the back. In midfield Emilio has the most choice. But my choice would be Overmeire, Gueye, De Pauw and Leko. Upfront he could play with Perbet and Golan. Janzyck (9 goals) wont play for Lokeren anymore as he moved to GBA some days ago. I think this should be the right team to start operation rescue. Lokeren had a complete off-day in their last match against Roeselare. But before that they played some decent games. Off course not great, but they certainly deserved some more points. But coach Mathijssen changed his team way too much and players started to get frustrated. Board picked up those signals and fired him. Emilio will certainly get some sort of system in their field play.
Eyes on Tuesday?
Mechelen moved up to spot number 6 with 32p. A bit too high if u ask me. Mechelen is a strange team to me. Sometimes they have periods where they play attacking football and score lots of goals and sometimes (like the last few weeks) they cant seem to create much chances and play boring football. I think the most important thing for our bet is the fact they play the first leg of the semi-final against Gent in midweek. Dont think coach Maes will do it, but there is always some chance he will rest some key players cuz Mechelen had a busy schedule the last couple of weeks. Lokeren will be there 7th match in 20 days. They already miss Nong upfront (flies back to his homeland to visit his sick mother). He wont be back on time to play. I just read on forum that Mununga is sick. His loss could be of high importance as he is one of the key players for this Mechelen. Mostly trainers rest offensive players so i think we wont see any changes in goal or at the back. So Biebauw - Chen, Van Hoevelen, Ivens or Biset and Ghomsi will be the back 5. Persoons, Buyens, Gorius, Soetaers. Upfront Rossini and Destorme. But like i said, things could be completely different as the midweek match is much more important for Mechelen. Mechelen played last years final (and lost) and i guess they wanna play another cup final. Cuz playing in the first play off group will be very difficult for them. As a lot of teams are fighting for that number 5 and 6 spot.
Opposites attract?
So to sum things up i think we have here two teams with other priorities. Lokeren wanna start their survival and to do so they need to start winning, at least in their home matches. Coach Ferreira had a week to train with his new team and players will know what they are expect to do. Like always players will be very motivated to show their new coach they have what it takes to be in the squad. While Mechelen may be tired due to their busy schedule and have an important midweek match. All these things let me to conclude that a homewin is more likely. So a line of (-0.25) is more than enough for me to put some $$ on it.
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Prediction:
Tip: 1 AH (-0.25)
Odd: 1.91
Bookie: Bwin
Stake: 5 /10
Tipster: Kather
