Friday, April 23, 2021 at 13:14• Yanick Vos • Last update: 13:17

Arjen Robben will not play with FC Groningen against his old club PSV on Saturday evening. The attacker stays behind in Groningen to complete an individual program there, the club announced. Robben is left out of the match selection so that he can fully focus on next week’s home game against Sparta Rotterdam on Sunday.

Trainer Danny Buijs announces via the club channel that Robben has trained ‘for the most part’ in recent days. “That is going well,” said the coach about the veteran, who made his comeback almost two weeks ago in the game against sc Heerenveen (0-2 loss). Robben was sidelined for months with an injury. Prior to the final training for the game with PSV, Buijs already hinted that Robben would not travel to Eindhoven: “What is the most ideal for tomorrow (Saturday, ed.)? Is that going to Eindhoven and play for a few minutes again, or is that perhaps staying here and running a full training session with the Under-21? ”, Says Buijs.

Groningen has to continue without the injured Bart van Hintum against PSV. Alessio Da Cruz is a doubt for the game in the Philips Stadium, which starts at 6.45 p.m. “To be honest, I had actually expected that PSV would still be competing for the championship at this stage of the competition,” Buijs said. “They already had a lot of individual qualities with, for example, Malen, Gakpo and Dumfries. Players such as Zahavi, Max and Götze have been added to that. We must therefore have a good plan to combat PSV and we must also implement that plan optimally. We know what to expect, we can get to work. ”