The defeat was cruel on the struggling hosts who looked to have earned a draw with their own last-gasp spot-kick from Edwin de Graaf. Guyon Fernandez gave Excelsior a surprise lead in the 22nd minute, but Jeremain Lens and Atiba Hutchinson scored in the space of three second-half minutes to give PSV the advantage before the late drama Twente had earlier maintained their title challenge with a hard-fought 2-0 win over NAC Breda. The defending champions rode their luck early on before securing their 16th win of the season courtesy of second-half goals from Luuk de Jong and Nacer Chadli. ADO Den Haag hammered NEC Nijmegen 5-1 to climb up to fourth. Lex Immers, Dmitry Bulukin, Wesley Verhoek, Jens Toornstra and Jordy Brouwer were all on target for the hosts in a dominant display. Bjorn Vleminckx had pulled NEC level earlier in the contest, but they were no match for ADO and the dismissal of Niki Zimling late on capped a miserable evening. Vitesse Arnhem boosted their survival chances with a 2-0 victory at home to relegation rivals VVV Venlo. Marco van Ginkel opened the scoring in the 48th minute and Ismail Aissati's goal in stoppage time sealed VVV's fate. The win moved Vitesse six points clear of the bottom three while VVV stayed second bottom, six points behind third-bottom Excelsior.
