Louis van Gaal sees plenty of points for improvement at Cody Gakpo, even though the national coach is full of praise for the qualities of the PSV attacker. The 22-year-old winger has left the the Dutch training camp with an injury, which in the eyes of Van Gaal could have been prevented. “If he feels something, he should say so immediately,” said the trainer.
Gakpo has been in the starting line-up for the past two World Cup qualifiers against Norway (1-1) and Montenegro (4-0). Van Gaal calls his injury ‘a line through the bill’ on his way to Tuesday’s game against Turkey. “I think Gakpo is a great talent. He scores easily. He has now also shown that in the Dutch national team,” says Van Gaal in conversation with the Dutch national team. NOS.
Gakpo determined the final score on Saturday evening in the Philips Stadium with a shot from outside the penalty area. Shortly afterwards, Van Gaal changed the left winger, although the national coach would have liked to do that earlier in retrospect. Gakpo suffered an injury against Montenegro, preventing him from playing against Turkey on Tuesday. “He is also a young player, so he still has a lot of experience to gain. For example with this injury: if he feels something, he should say so immediately. I wanted to change him 15 minutes before the end, protect him because I know that we have three games and he’s an explosive player. But that was five minutes late.”
According to Van Gaal, the injury would have been prevented if he had taken him off the side earlier. “That’s experience. And so there are more ‘experience assignments’ in the field that he still has trouble with,” said Van Gaal, who criticized the role Gakpo played in the goal against Erling Braut Haaland after the draw against Norway. was one of the players who lifted offside, after which the Norwegian signed for the opening goal.
Rik Elfrink from the Eindhovens Dagblad reports that the initial forecast is that Gakpo will be out for about a week. Due to privacy rules, the nature of the injury may not be reported. It is very doubtful whether Gakpo can play with PSV at AZ on Saturday. This is followed by the opening match in the Europa League at home against Real Sociedad for the Eindhoven team on Thursday. The following Sunday follows the first top match in the Eredivisie against Feyenoord. “The fact that PSV reports that he is training based on the pain means that it is not a serious injury,” Elfrink reports.