Group D stragglers seek fresh hope

The stakes will be high when Group D's bottom two teams, PSV Eindhoven and Olympique de Marseille, meet in the Netherlands on Matchday 3.

• With two defeats each already, both PSV and Marseille will appreciate that another slip-up could leave their hopes hanging by a thread and they will be determined to breathe fresh life into their campaigns with a victory.

• For PSV, the aim must be to improve on their previous home performance, the morale-denting 3-0 loss to Club Atlético de Madrid on Matchday 1. Sergio Agüero (9, 36) and Maniche (54) did the damage for the visitors that night and there was further disappointment for Huub Stevens' men when they visited Liverpool FC on 1 October. By the time Danny Koevermans found the net with 12 minutes remaining, PSV had already conceded goals to Dirk Kuyt (4), Robbie Keane (34) and Steven Gerrard (76).

• The Dutch club have been in this position before, in the 2003/04 season, when after two opening reverses, they recorded three wins and a draw in their remaining games. However, that did not rescue them from elimination as they lost out on second place in their group to RC Deportivo La Coruña on the head-to-head rule.

• Marseille have never made such a bad start to a group-stage campaign and travel to Eindhoven on the back of successive 2-1 defeats.

• After taking a 23rd-minute lead through Lorik Cana, they lost to Liverpool on Matchday 1 as Gerrard struck twice for the visitors (26, 32 pen). They then suffered a similar fate at Atlético where Mamadou Niang's 16th-minute strike was sandwiched by efforts from Agüero (4) and Raúl García (22) for the home side.

• To better their position in Group D, OM will have to improve on their recent performance levels on the road in Europe. Since winning their opening group-stage match of 2007/08 at Liverpool, they have lost five of their subsequent six away fixtures in UEFA club competition – three in the UEFA Champions League and two in the UEFA Cup.

• Their only win in that time was a 1-0 success at SK Brann in the third qualifying round in August.

• The two clubs can take heart from last season's group-stage statistics which show that two teams qualified for the knockout rounds after two defeats, while another two progressed despite suffering three losses.

• For Marseille's Belgian coach Erik Gerets, this game marks a homecoming to the club he served as both a player (1985-92) and a coach (1999-2002).

• Gerets previously faced PSV in the 2006/07 group stage when he was at the helm of Turkey's Galatasaray AŞ. He finished on the losing side in both matches, going down 2-1 in Istanbul and 2-0 in Eindhoven on Matchdays 3 and 4 of that season's competition.

• Gerets famously won the European Champion Clubs' Cup with the Eindhoven side in 1988 but it is less well known that he made his UEFA club competition debut for the Dutch outfit alongside his current PSV counterpart Stevens in the 1985/86 season. The pair played together in a 4-0 UEFA Cup first-round home win over FC Avenir Beggen on 2 October 1985 and also in the next round against FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, a tie PSV lost 3-2 on aggregate.

• PSV's overall home record against French sides is P14 W5 D6 L3.

• The Eredivisie club suffered defeats on the last two occasions Ligue 1 opposition came to Eindhoven. They went down 3-1 to FC Girondins de Bordeaux in the 2006/07 group stage – albeit with qualification already assured – and the previous season lost 1-0 to Olympique Lyonnais en route to a 5-0 aggregate reverse in the first knockout round.

• As a player for PSV, Stevens was in the team that lost 1-0 on aggregate to AS Saint-Etienne in the 1975/76 European Champion Clubs' Cup semi-final but, two seasons later, defeated Corsican club SC Bastia to win the UEFA Cup, prevailing 3-0 on aggregate.

• As coach of Hamburger SV last season, Stevens oversaw a 3-0 home victory over another French side, Stade Rennais FC, in the UEFA Cup group stage.

• Marseille have won just two and lost four of seven past matches against clubs from the Netherlands.

• Their only away victory against Dutch opposition came in a losing cause, a 2-1 success at AFC Ajax failing to prevent a 4-2 aggregate reverse in the semi-final of the 1987/88 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

• Marseille's most recent encounter with an Eredivisie side came in the group stage of the 2005/06 UEFA Cup when Taye Taiwo's 88th-minute penalty earned a 1-0 win over SC Heerenveen.

• Marseille midfielder Boudewijn Zenden began his career with PSV, making his debut in the 1994/95 season and going on to register 109 appearances and 32 goals in the Dutch top flight before moving on to FC Barcelona in 1998.

• Zenden faced his old club four times in the course of the 2006/07 campaign when playing for Liverpool – and did not finish on the losing side once. The English club drew 0-0 at PSV and beat them 2-0 at Anfield in the group stage; then in the quarter-finals, they beat them first away (3-0) and then at home (1-0).

• Atlético Madrid welcome Liverpool to the Vicente Calderón stadium in the other Group D match on Matchday 3.