Ruud van Nistelrooij looks back on the home match against FC Zurich with a good feeling. Just like last week, the Swiss also had nothing to say in the Philips Stadium on Thursday evening. Van Nistelrooij’s team eventually triumphed 5-0, a score that could have been much higher. The PSV coach regrets that Guus Til was unable to score. The midfielder was used as a striker for the occasion in the absence of a large number of colleagues.
Van Nistelrooij was again forced to move in the striker against Zurich. Luuk de Jong, Yorbe Vertessen and Ismael Saibari were all absent for various reasons. And so Til was allowed to show it from the starting signal. “You can clearly see that he is looking for his new position, but you also see that he gives everything and takes up his role well, also provided two assists,” said Van Nistelrooij afterwards in front of the cameras of Veronica. “It’s a shame he didn’t take his open header chance, he deserved that given his game today.”
Last week’s performance was more appealing to Van Nistelrooij. PSV was also lord and master in Switzerland, but then had to swallow a goal. On Thursday, the goal was kept clean for the second game in a row. “I actually found it more convincing last week, although today’s result is better. We kept a clean sheet, so in that respect we did well. So in that respect it is better than last week. You can speak of a perfect The good start allowed us to give players a rest, which was very important for us.”
For PSV, tough weeks await the World Cup, including a double meeting with Arsenal and competition matches against FC Utrecht (Sunday), Ajax (November 6) and AZ (November 12). Van Nistelrooij looks forward to it with great confidence. “This says a lot about us”, he refers to the resounding victory over Zurich. “It will be two very difficult games against Arsenal, but we would like to take this level of these two games with us to those two games. But now our sights are first on FC Utrecht next Sunday.”
Joey Veerman finds it difficult to estimate what PSV has to offer against Arsenal. “With all due respect to Zurich, but I don’t think this was of the level of Arsenal,” said the midfielder who was accurate twice against the Swiss. “Then we will probably be a little less on the ball and we have to muster the discipline to do it as well as possible. It has to be seen whether we can touch that level. I don’t think we have such a match yet this season. good opponent.”