PSV had a busy end to the transfer period, with players such as Adrian Fein, Mario Götze and Marco van Ginkel who were all brought in at the last minute. After all the transfer violence, the Eindhoven team now has a strong selection on paper, but trainer Roger Schmidt does not count himself rich yet. The German coach indicates on Friday afternoon that Ajax is still considered the favorite for the championship as far as he is concerned.

“I think it is always difficult to win prizes in football. If not, anyone could right? I think we have a good roster now, but I see us as the challenger. Last season we came fourth and if you compare our budget with that of Ajax, there is a big difference ”, he says at the press conference in the run-up to the game with PEC Zwolle on Sunday afternoon. “The club with the highest budget should always be the favorite. This applies to all competitions in Europe, if you look around you will see that the team with the highest budget usually becomes champions. However, we now know that we have a good selection and if we do everything right, cultivate a good team spirit and also have some luck with injuries, it might be possible. ”

For a long time it seemed that PSV would go through a somewhat disappointing transfer period for the supporters, but with the arrival of Ibrahim Sangaré and the names mentioned above in the last week before the deadline, the club was still stirring. Players such as Philipp Max, Yvon Mvogo and Eran Zahavi were also recruited at an earlier stage and Schmidt says he never worried about his club’s transfer affairs: “I always said we had to be patient. We had that too and in the end we were able to do some good transfers. We are happy that our selection is now complete and it feels a bit like the season is starting again, because now for the first time we have all the players together. ”

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In addition to PSV’s transfer cases, Mohamed Ihattaren was also a topic of discussion in recent weeks. The talent lost its starting place and saw a competitor of name come in with the arrival of Götze. Schmidt indicates that Ihattaren has responded well to these setbacks as far as he is concerned: “I think he is doing well now. He was a bit sick last week, but yesterday he trained again and he was happy and motivated to be back. He’s doing a good job. At the moment he is on the right track and made the golden goal he was very happy with the training. ”

“Hopefully that will be a good sign for the upcoming games. I think our job is to get all players in top form, that also applies mentally and in terms of mindset. The first weeks were not so good Monot even in terms of his performance, ”Schmidt continues. “The players are of course disappointed, but over time they start to see things differently and the most important is that they mindset change, that they start fighting for their position again. It’s always good to have competition and we now have that in all positions. I think that is a good basis for players to develop. ” PSV will take on PEC on Sunday afternoon at 4.45 pm in Zwolle. It is not yet entirely clear which new players Schmidt can appeal to.