Dirk Kuyt finds it remarkable that PSV does not yet have a ‘crystal’ within the selection. Wednesday evening the analyst looks up RTL7 back on the elimination of PSV against Benfica in the preliminary round of the Champions League, and he blames the Eindhoven team for not having a striker ready to break the spell. Wesley Sneijder does not agree with his former teammate at the Dutch and believes that PSV did not need a striker against the Portuguese.
During the preview of the match in the preliminary round of the Champions League between Shakhtar Donetsk and AS Monaco, Kuyt mentions the problem at PSV when asked. “This game is about a lot of money. If you look at the selection of PSV, you see a lot of quality and creativity. The substitutes are all very similar. Then I find it very striking that there is no crowbar like Luuk de Jong or Bas Dost at this stage. Such names are simply crucial for PSV at the moment. Then they only have to invest a few million euros, but that could have made all the difference,” says Kuyt.
“Dirk, PSV didn’t need an extra striker at all, did they?” Sneijder parries his colleague’s criticism. “If you just keep the field wide with Cody Gakpo, have Noni Madueke on the other side and everyone plays from their position, then you completely destroy Benfica.” For Sneijder, PSV’s pain point was mainly the fact that experienced players did not intervene. “If a trainer does not see that Benfica is being played into the hands of PSV’s substitutions, then you also have Mario Götze, the great gentleman and world champion? Then someone has to stand up in the field, but apparently they can’t,” says Sneijder.
Kuyt also saw problems with the substitution policy of trainer Roger Schmidt. “What surprised me most is the lack of initiative at PSV when Benfica received a red card. Schmidt has had the whole rest time to put it down in the right way, but then it doesn’t get it done. Even if you see the substitutions later… For me, this was just substitution for the sake of substitution. I can’t imagine that, while playing against ten men, you change your defining players after seventy minutes, even if they have already had a rest the weekend before,” concludes Kuyt.