PSV was very concerned about Mohamed Ihattaren’s reckless driving at the beginning of 2021, reports Marco Timmer van Football International. According to the journalist, the nineteen-year-old attacking midfielder ‘mutated’ when the people of Eindhoven pulled the plug from the contract negotiations. Ihattaren would have been stopped at speeds of around 180 or 190 kilometers per hour.
From the summer of 2020, the first cracks in the marriage between PSV and Ihattaren began to appear. Roger Schmidt passed the youngster for the first league match against FC Groningen, because he would not have the right attitude. At the end of 2020, Ihattaren seemed to revive after difficult months with a goal in the Eredivisie match with RKC Waalwijk (1-4 win), but disappeared again a few months later.
Mohamed Ihattaren shows up in Utrecht with personal trainer
Mohamed Ihattaren gave ‘a sign of life’ on Friday.
At the beginning of March of this year it was announced that PSV and Ihattaren could not agree on a new contract. On the final day of the summer transfer window, he was sold to Juventus, to be immediately loaned to Sampdoria. “What played a part in why it went so wrong is that PSV has spent almost a year, a year and a half to break open and extend its contract,” says Timmer in a video item. “Also so that he would eventually yield at least twenty million euros, which is what everyone thought at the time.”
“He was the gem”, Timmer knows. “After Steven Bergwijn, Memphis Depay and Donyell Malen, he had to be the next to be sold for a lot of money and that was part of it. That contract extension has lasted so long, PSV has always added some water to the wine. I’m told that they really dug exorbitantly deep into their pockets and that Ihattaren actually wanted more and that’s why it took so long. In the end PSV said, and they will never say that out loud: ‘Up to here and no further.’ You have to draw the line somewhere and pull the plug.”
Due to the new demands of Ihattaren, the contract negotiations between the attacking midfielder and PSV were put on hold for the time being. “From that moment on, he started mutiny,” says Timmer, who then lists a few examples. “At PSV they were concerned that he would have a fatal accident. He was snatched off the road a few times at 180, 190 kilometers per hour,” the journalist said. “Calling in the locker room, playing futsal illegally, sustaining a muscle injury in your spare time. He said it originated during a personal training and inquiries with that personal trainer learns that he had not seen Ihattaren for a month and a half.”