Vitesse 3-0 Roda
Heerenveen 3-1 Willem II
Den Haag 1-1 NAC
Heracles 0-2 AZ
Groningen 0-1 PSV
Utrecht 0-2 NEC
De Graafschap 0-2 Feyenoord
Sparta 1-2 Twente
Ajax 2-1 Volendam
Hells teeth, De Graafschap are bad. Sunday's TV game from Doetinchem was played out on a terrible pitch at De Vijverberg and, as such, was not a spectacle of any great magnitude. Especially when the opposition are the hapless Feyenoord. The Rotterdammers have benefited from playing teams below them these last couple of weeks which has pulled them away from immediate danger, but they're still a poor side and laboured to a 2-0 win which wasn't sealed until Jon Dahl Tomasson's injury time goal. Karim El Ahmadi got the opener ten minutes into the second half and he'd looked most likely in the first half, but really, you do see better games on park pitches. Better pitches too.
The status quo remains at the top with the top four all winning in routine fashion. AZ barely broke sweat in scoring another 2-0 win in Almelo. Heracles were completely outplayed, but held the Alkmaar side out until thirteen minutes into the second half when Mounir El Hamdaoui - inevitably - broke the deadlock, played in by Ari. Heracles were forced to change it and actually attack and were eventually picked off by El Hamdaoui for his 20th of the season, beating Martin Pieckenhagen when put through one-on-one. That put AZ back into a 12-point lead, but Twente pulled it back to nine on Sunday in beating Sparta in Rotterdam. Just four minutes in, Sparta midfielder Sander van Gessel put through his own net, shanking an attempted clearance of Eljero Elia's cross with Blaise N'Kufo lurking. Twente didn't really capitalise on their stroke of luck and Sparta got back into it with a penalty on the half hour after Slobodan Rajkovic handled in the area, Ruud Knol slotting home the penalty. Sparta looked good for a point as the game looked to be petering out into a draw, but in stoppage time, Theo Janssen unleashed a 40-yard thunderbolt to snatch the points. Volendam took a shock lead away at Amsterdam, Gerson Sheotahul capitalising on a counter-attack after Ajax had dominated the early going. Luis Suarez was once again the big Ajax threat and wasted a chance to level matters when one-on-one with Jeroen Verhoven, but made amends when heading home Rasmus Lindgren's cross. Thomas Vermaelen has been in good goal scoring touch for a defender lately and he bagged another one, heading in Miralem Sulejmani's cross. Suarez wasted a number of chances, which kept Volendam in it and they may have stolen a point when Rowin van Zaanen's late effort came back off the post, but Dominique van Dijk's follow up was ruled out for offside. PSV needed a late goal to beat Groningen who finally conceded after a record 575 minutes of football. An entertaining game looked destined to end goalless until Dwight Lodeweges pushed Danko Lazovic on with seven minutes to go and he popped up to head home Stefan Nijland's cross after good work in midfield from Jason Culina.
Heerenveen got back to winning ways, further putting Willem II in the mire at the same time with a convincing 3-1 win. They went in to the break 2-0 ahead through Paulo Henriques and Kritian Bak Nielsen as Tilburg keeper Maikel Aerts was the busiest man on the field. Roy Beerens made it three late on before Willem II finally broke through to score through Mohamed Messoudi. Two early goals for Vitesse in the Friday game took the wind out of Roda's sails, leaving the Kerkrade club deep in trouble. Dalibor Stevanovic and Sébastien Sansoni scored in the first 20 minutes to all but win it there and then. A third duly followed in the second half through Nicky Hofs as the Arnhem side completed a routine win. Den Haag picked up a precious point at home to NAC, Rick Hoogendorp equalising Nourdin Boukhari's opener. Utrecht were upset at home to NEC by two late goals from Youssef El Akchaoui and Joel Tshibamba.
Volendam remain rooted to the bottom, now eight points from safety and all but down. Roda and De Graafschap are in the relegation play-off places, fully five points from getting out of it. AZ lead from Twente with Ajax and PSV in the UEFA places. Heerenveen, Groningen, Utrecht and NAC are in the UEFA play-off spots with NEC right on their heels.
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