PSV prepared Friday afternoon with 18 selection players for the final stage of this calendar year. In an unfortunately empty Philips Stadium, Roger Schmidt's team will play Vitesse on Saturday at 4:30 pm. The Head Coach looks ahead.
Belief in own ability
"Vitesse is a strong opponent, as it is the number five team in the league," Schmidt began. "The team plays in a difficult system to combat: five defenders and two attackers. That's not easy, but we also see opportunities." Schmidt sees those in the fact that his team already has some experience playing against teams that use the same system this year. "It will be tough and we will have to adapt to the opponent, but we believe in ourselves and we will go for the win."
Injury ghost slowly dissolves
A glance at the training ground reveals that five players were missing from group training. The long-time injured Ryan Thomas, Cody Gakpo and Noni Madueke were joined in absence by Jordan Teze (injury suffered against Fortuna Sittard), Eran Zahavi (injured with the national team of Israel) and Philipp Max. The German has tested positive for corona and is therefore not deployable on Saturday. Teze and Gakpo are training individually and there is even better news about Yorbe Vertessen, Richard Ledezma, Davy Pröpper and Armando Obispo. They trained with the group that is preparing for the game with the number five of the Eredivisie.
Hopeful
"We have some problems," acknowledged Schmidt, who then spoke hopefully. "We hope Cody and Jordan will return before Christmas and we are happy that Ibrahim Sangaré has returned fully fit from international football with Ivory Coast. The rest of the team used the international break to rest and train well. We are looking forward to playing again tomorrow."