Lateness. That prevailed Sunday afternoon after the final whistle among the PSV players who had just lost to AZ. The title hopes are gone, agreed also captain Luuk de Jong afterwards at FOX Sports: 'Fourteen goals is not going to happen again,' said De Jong.
After 33 rounds of play in the Eredivisie, that goal difference and three points is the difference between PSV and Ajax in favor of the Amsterdammers. "They are as good as champions," De Jong spoke. According to the striker, the team has themselves entirely to blame. "It was far too sloppy today," he felt. "The 1-0 was indicative of that. We were not solid enough on the ball. We still got plenty of chances, but even those efforts were insufficient."
'Hard facts'
Denzel Dumfries agreed with De Jong in his analysis and then spoke with resignation. "At the end of the league you are in the place you are entitled to. You have to be sporting after the game, we are dejected, just not good enough for the title, but we will continue next season with our heads held high," the defender said.
Dumfries also saw that a lot went wrong for PSV in Alkmaar. "These are the hard facts. We were not ourselves, we can blame ourselves for that. I am proud of what we have put up as a team this season, but it has not been enough," said Dumfries, who then tried to put his feelings into words. "A lot of emotions are going through me right now. The first half of the season was very good. In the second half of the season, we missed out in certain games. We were no longer the PSV of the first half of the season. Things were a little less, a little more difficult. That's a hard observation, but we have to be honest with ourselves. It didn't turn out to be good enough."
'Always keep fighting'
De Jong also previewed the evaluation of the season. "It wasn't always good, but we kept fighting. It's really not down to that, but we had too many games in which we were too sloppy. In which we had to fight back from a deficit. That caused us to lose points and that's killing us now."