Two sides in highly contrasting forms go head-to-head at the Wuyuan River Stadium on Thursday, as Henan Songshan Longmen face off against Guangzhou City.

The hosts are aiming to pick up a third victory in four outings, while the away side set out to avoid a ninth defeat on the bounce.

Match preview

Off the back of a first defeat of the campaign, Henan Songshan Longmen wasted no time in returning to winning ways as they saw off the threat of Zhejiang Professional.

Javier Pereira's men opened the scoring two minutes shy of the hour mark through Yihao Zhong, and that was enough to secure all three points.

As a result, the Red Devils have moved up to third place in the standings, one point behind second spot and a further four points adrift of current leaders Wuhan Three Towns.

Their next task sees them go up against an opposing outfit who are yet to come out on top in any of the last five clashes involving the teams.

Having failed to taste defeat in any of their last seven home matches, Thursday's hosts will fancy themselves heavily to get the job done.

Guangzhou City still await their first point this term following a 2-0 defeat to Shandong Taishan at the Mission Hills Football Base Stadium.

First-half goals from Crysan and Zheng Zheng left Jean-Paul van Gastel's men with a mountain to climb, which eventually proved to be insurmountable.

Unsurprisingly, the Blue Lions remain rooted to the bottom of the league table and are now six points adrift of safety after just eight matches.

Thursday's visitors currently boast the worst record at both ends of the pitch in the entire division, highlighting how much work there is to be done in order to turn their season around.

Team News

Jiaqi Han is expected to fend off competition from Yuelei Cheng and retain his place in between the sticks for a fourth game on the spin.

Meanwhile, Zhizhao Chen could be handed a recall to the starting XI for this one after the 34-year-old missed his side's last outing.

The hosts are set to welcome back the services of Jinbao Zhong, who served a one-game suspension in the victory over Zhejiang Professional.

Henrique Dourado was on fire in the reverse fixture, and the Brazilian forward will be looking to deliver the goods once again for Henan.

Henan Songshan Longmen possible starting lineup:
Wang; Yang, Sunjic, Liu; Zhong, Zhao, Wang, Mierzejewski; Karanga, Enrique, Huang

Guangzhou City possible starting lineup:
Han; Zhang, Fu, Jiang; Fan, Li, Tan, Huang; Li, Cardona, Wang

We say: Henan Songshan Longmen 3-1 Guangzhou City

Guangzhou City have failed to get going so far and it is hard to see them coming away with anything from this one. We expect Henan to cruise to all three points in what should be a largely one-sided affair.

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