The Dane has been below his best since returning from a month-long absence with a hand injury.
Team boss Jim Lynch will have talks before the match with Hougaard, who showed signs of happier times when he scored 10 points in the second leg of the Danish championship final in Esbjerg at the weekend.
Lynch said: “We haven’t seen the Hougaard we know in recent meetings. I’ll be discussing the situation with him to see if we can get to the bottom of his problem. I’ve shuffled the team pairings tonight and put Chris Harris and Hougaard together.
“Hopefully we can get some riders gelling better in different pairings.”
The Autogate Aces have six league matches left, two at home and four away, as well as the Knockout Cup – and Lynch is demanding a grandstand finish to the campaign.
He added: “We will go into our remaining meetings with a hugely positive attitude and it won’t be for the lack of trying that we don’t achieve a good finish to the season.”
Team: Chris Harris, Patrick Hougaard, Craig Cook, Charlie Gjedde, Rory Schlein, Ricky Kling, Lukasz Jankowski. Tweet