NEC Nijmegen's Defensive Crisis Meets Fortuna Sittard's Scoring Habit: Eredivisie Sunday Preview

NEC Nijmegen host Fortuna Sittard in the Eredivisie on Sunday 18 October 2026 at 19:00 UK time. On paper it looks like a mid-table scrap between two inconsistent sides. Look closer and there is genuine tension here. NEC cannot keep a clean sheet to save their lives. Fortuna cannot stop conceding either. Something is going to give, and probably more than once.

NEC Nijmegen: The Standards Have Slipped

Let me be direct about NEC. In their last ten completed Eredivisie matches, they have won three, drawn three, and lost four. That is not good enough for a home side with genuine ambitions. Sixteen goals scored. Seventeen conceded. A clean sheet percentage of zero. None. Not one.

Their recent five-match form tells a similar story. Two wins, one draw, two losses. They beat PEC Zwolle 3-1 and Willem II 4-1, which looks tidy on the surface. But then they lost to Feyenoord 1-3, drew with Excelsior 2-2, and got hammered by SC Cambuur 0-3. That Cambuur result is the one that sticks. You lose 0-3 at home and score nothing, there is something wrong with your attitude or your organisation. Usually both.

Both sides of the ball are a problem for NEC right now. They have been involved in both teams scoring in 80 per cent of their last five matches. The thing is, you can live with giving up goals if you are scoring freely. NEC are not consistent enough at either end to make that trade work in their favour.

They are also carrying injury problems that cannot be ignored. Four players are currently out with injuries. One of those is a long-term absence that has been running since April. Another two are major injuries with no return date confirmed. That kind of disruption to your squad is not an excuse. It is a fact. But it does explain why their defensive shape has been all over the place. You cannot hammer standards into a patched-up back line and expect miracles overnight.

Fortuna Sittard: Plenty of Goals, Plenty of Problems

Fortuna arrive with three wins from their last five Eredivisie outings. That sounds positive. But they have also lost twice, conceded twelve goals across those five matches, and failed to keep a single clean sheet. Sound familiar.

Their most recent result was a 1-5 loss to Ajax. That is a result you have to contextualise because Ajax are Ajax. But getting shipped five goals does not reflect well on your defensive accountability regardless of the opponent. Prior to that, Fortuna beat ADO Den Haag 3-2 and FC Groningen 3-2, both competitive matches where they found a way to win. They also beat SC Cambuur 3-1 earlier in the window. They can score. They do score. The basics of pressing and threatening in the final third are clearly there.

Across their last ten matches the numbers are honest. Four wins, one draw, five losses. Goals for: seventeen. Goals against: twenty-two. They concede more than they score over a large enough sample. An 80 per cent both teams to score rate tells you what kind of match Fortuna tend to be involved in. They are not boring. They are just unreliable.

Fortuna have their own injury concerns heading into Sunday. Two major injuries and one long-term absence are listed in the data, with a player also serving a suspension that runs until January 2027. That is a significant loss from their squad, and any manager will tell you that suspensions are completely unacceptable. You choose to get yourself suspended. That is not a misfortune. That is a lack of discipline.

What Sunday Comes Down To

Neither side can defend. Both sides can score. The evidence supports that plainly and I will not dress it up any other way.

NEC will have the crowd behind them and they will want a response after that Cambuur humiliation. Home comfort matters in the Eredivisie. But home comfort only goes so far if your defensive basics are this poor. A crowd cannot tackle for you. It cannot organise your shape when the ball is lost.

Fortuna will come knowing they have the firepower to hurt NEC. Their 3-2 wins over Groningen and ADO Den Haag showed a side that can compete even when the game is open and stretched. They are not a team that folds when goals go in. They keep coming. Whether that is admirable resilience or tactical naivety depends entirely on how Sunday goes.

The injury situation at both clubs complicates everything. When you are missing major players with no return date, your manager cannot drill the same system week after week. You are patching. You are improvising. That leads to errors at the basics. Wrong positions. Slow reactions. Poor marking at set pieces. Those are the moments that decide matches at this level.

The Bet

I back one thing hard and I will not mess around with it. Both teams to score is the selection here. NEC have conceded in every single one of their last ten Eredivisie matches. Fortuna have scored in recent wins against Groningen, ADO Den Haag, and Cambuur. Both sides carry injuries that undermine defensive solidity. The numbers point one way consistently and I trust my eyes over anything else.

Both teams to score. That is the call. End of.

Final Thought

This is not a glamour fixture. It is not one of those matches that gets written about in the newspapers on Monday morning for the right reasons. But it is a match where two sides with genuine defensive problems meet each other with something to prove. That tends to produce football worth watching, even if the standards leave something to be desired.

NEC need to rediscover their accountability at the back. Fortuna need to prove they can handle a hostile environment after being taken apart by Ajax. Sunday evening will tell us something real about both clubs. It usually does.