PSV has the Conference League as a safety net, but was painfully eliminated from the Europa League on Thursday evening. After a poor performance, the team was sent back to Eindhoven with a 3-0 loss. In the morning papers, the arrows were aimed at trainer Roger Schmidt a day later.
‘Roger Schmidt loses reality from high up’, concluded the Eindhovens Dagblad , which stated that PSV ‘has been pressed hard against the facts’. ‘PSV was invited by the Basques to play nice football, quickly met that requirement and eventually went down hard. PSV thought they had control over the match, but in reality they were dancing on a box full of green soap.’
The newspaper wondered why Schmidt let his team play the usual game and look for the attack, when in San Sebastian it was enough with a point. ‘Purely in terms of game concept, that is commendable, but with the current PSV it is a naive approach against a team that until recently played in the top of La Liga. PSV has managed to regain some form of stability in recent weeks, but earlier this season it also turned out that the team can collapse like a plum pudding in the event of a setback.’
“PSV is not yet reliable enough to cheerfully play the deep ball in these kinds of matches when the team is high, to put full pressure and to take all risks to look for the attack,” it continued. ‘Schmidt’s brigade sometimes gives away too many spaces unnecessarily and is not sufficiently stable to act like this against a team of this caliber. Certainly not at a time when that is not even asked.’
De Telegraaf found the evening ‘typical for this season’s PSV in matches where it is all about’, which meant, among other things, the large defeats against Feyenoord (0-4) and Ajax (5-0). ‘It painfully came to light what the PSV lacks,’ the newspaper noted. Just like before against Benfica, when qualification for the Champions League group stage was at stake, the big leaders in particular failed. No dominant Mario Götze and Cody Gakpo could not impress either.’
