Valentijn Driessen favors in his column The Telegraph firmly out to PSV coach Roger Schmidt. The German coach has to endure due to persistent disappointing results. Driessen calls Schmidt the best trainer for Ajax, where one would hope that he will quickly re-sign in Eindhoven. “A stronger signal to reconsider a joint future with Schmidt is hardly imaginable for the PSV club management,” said Driessen.
Driessen could not understand last week that PSV wants to extend Schmidt’s contract. “They had been in touch and it looks good. It looks like they will continue together. There is also not a hair on his head with Schmidt that thinks about quitting. Then I think: my Godhe said on the newspaper’s website. Ajax club watcher Mike Verweij knows that they are not sorry about it at Ajax, if the German was allowed to extend at PSV. “It is a joke, and admittedly a lame joke, that it is said in Amsterdam: please let Schmidt sign, because it is the best trainer Ajax has ever had. It is of course painful that such a thing is said.”
Ten Hag’s Ajax is demolishing PSV: ‘They tapped from the cupboard to the wall’
Ajax won 5-0 against PSV on Sunday, giving the leader after ten matches a lead of four points and a better goal difference: plus thirty to plus five. Erik ten Hag’s team won convincingly in the Johan Cruijff ArenA with goals from Steven Berghuis, Sébastien Haller, Antony, Davy Klaassen and Dusan Tadic. Driessen wonders in his column how long general manager Toon Gerbrands and technical manager John de Jong will let themselves be fooled at PSV. “Schmidt best trainer for Ajax”, he headlines in his column. “Someone internally at PSV will gradually see through the so-called good functioning of Schmidt?”, Driessen wonders. “Or do they allow themselves to be sprinkled in their eyes and blame the ear washing at Ajax on the absence of star player Cody Gakpo and winger Noni Madueke? Or that the Ajax players could concentrate on the top match for four days and the PSV players only two?”
Driessen states that Schmidt has been catered to in Eindhoven and that he lacks nothing to perform better with PSV than now. “Even a shred of development or any perspective is missing,” it sounds like. Driessen notes that PSV finished sixteen points behind Ajax last season. Last summer, the Eindhoven team failed to qualify for the group stage of the Champions League. “When it came down to it, PSV failed to score 11 against ten against Benfica and were therefore sentenced to the Europa League. In it, wintering is in doubt after the loss at home to AS Monaco, while the team previously escaped with a scare against Real Sociedad.”
PSV is in second place in the Eredivisie. Schmidt’s team lost to Feyenoord and Willem II and ran into its third loss of the season in Amsterdam. “After the breakdown, Schmidt argued that he cannot make enough training hours because of the busy schedule. PSV is or says it is a top club and therefore wants to participate with the big boys and that means playing every three or four days. A selection has been made for that. The program should not be an excuse. One of Gerbrand’s tile wisdoms is: ‘There are no excuses in top sport’.”
Despite the disappointing performance, the PSV club management is in talks with Schmidt about a new contract. Driessen wonders whether the current number two in the Eredivisie is doing well here. “Does Gerbrands and De Jong not light up when the trainer says after a flat performance against AS Monaco that he has seen a fantastic second half? While there was not a single played chance to note. Or that he thought that crowbar Vinícius showed that he had been of great value to PSV. Although he didn’t hit a ball in the usual way,” said Driessen, who states that Ajax played ‘at half power’ on Sunday.
Driessen also discusses statements made by Schmidt in the media. After the 2-1 victory over Go Ahead Eagles earlier this season, he scaled the game of the Deventers higher than Feyenoord, against which PSV lost 0-4 three days earlier. “While he downplayed Ajax’s stunning 4-0 win over Borussia Dortmund. With which he not only failed the performance of Erik ten Hag, but also put the Ajax players on edge for the mutual confrontation on Sunday. And all of that apart from Schmidt’s insane exchange policy over the past sixteen months,” Driessen concludes.