Johan Derksen does not understand why Marco van Ginkel is invariably preferred over Davy Pröpper at PSV. ‘s analyst Veronica Inside is particularly critical of the captain of the Eindhoven team on Monday evening, who he calls a ‘straight-forward player’. Derksen also thinks that his teammate Mario Götze did not give home the last duels.
PSV brought Pröpper back last summer, but the thirty-year-old midfielder was unable to force a base spot. “Then you get Pröpper, an excellent creative, technical midfielder, and he never participates,” says Derksen. “Because Van Ginkel or a French road worker (Ibrahim Sangaré, ed.) are there in midfield. What does Van Ginkel bring, what does he add? That is the captain… such a straight-forward player who taps a ball, while you can do something with Pröpper in possession.”
Van Ginkel was out for almost three years due to long-term injuries. Hans Kraay Jr. therefore doubts the fitness of the 28-year-old midfielder. “Is Van Ginkel’s knee still good enough to play at the top if you’ve had three operations?” Kraay Jr. wonders. “That is almost impossible. But Van Ginkel is not a nice ‘roadblock’, but he can head and he can tackle. And against AS Monaco (1-2 loss), he pulls the tackle that mattered in the ninetieth minute. his leg back… Then he has to look: are you still fit enough?”
René van der Gijp also has strong reservations about this. “What was Van Ginkel’s strength? His strength was to get into the opponent’s penalty area fifteen to twenty times. He won’t come to that anymore, dude. He now just plays the way you play with the former internationals,” said Van der Gijp, who also finds Götze disappointing. “PSV has two men there who are both seventy percent: Götze and Van Ginkel. But what happens when they get a little tired, have a pain? Then they are fifty percent. Because also that Götze yesterday: I saw nothing, nothing at all.”
Derksen fully agrees. “René recently explained that Gotze is only seventy to eighty percent due to his illness, and you have to settle for that. He is the most expensive and probably potentially the best player in PSV, but I have now seen him against Monaco and Ajax : zero in both games. Wouldn’t Pröpper have more to offer in form than Gotze with his seventy percent?”