Van Nistelrooy acknowledged that he had had a few tough days. “It was a great opportunity. Absolute. Everyone was ready. The players, the staff, the fans. It was the night it was supposed to happen. If that doesn’t happen, the blow is hard and the disappointment is great. The night after is bad and the day after is painful. Down to the bones. But every PSV player will have had that. And so am I. But when you get up this morning after a good night’s sleep, you’re fresh again. I look forward again. I’m looking forward to Sunday. In the restart of the competition. I’m looking forward to the draw later to be able to play wonderful matches in the Europa League again. That is top sport. It goes through trial and error and then continues. Then you don’t think in terms of accusations, but you start evaluating and analyzing. To see how you can do things better. That’s how I experience it.”
After looking back at the images, Van Nistelrooy concludes that it has been a dime on his side against Rangers and does not think his team can be blamed in terms of attitude. “The character of the team was definitely there. The match image was equal. For example, I think back to one moment in the game. The chance of Luuk de Jong, where the ball hits the keeper, while the keeper himself does not know, whereby Luuk gets injured. I thought that was indicative of the game. You don’t go into halftime 1-0 with a fit Luuk de Jong. But you miss that opportunity and you’ve lost Luuk. That was symbolic of the match for me. We had chances to score and didn’t give much away. We’ve had bigger chances than Rangers. If it’s just one game, that can happen. It was painful for sure.”
Luuk de Jong is sidelined at PSV for weeks.
ProShots
Additional damage is Luuk de Jong’s muscle injury, which, according to Van Nistelrooy, will take weeks. That means that the PSV coach is thin in his strikers, because Carlos Vinicius has only just returned from a long-term hamstring injury and cannot start yet, while Yorbe Vertessen is still on the way back from appendix surgery. For the time being, Ismael Saibari seems to be filling the position, while PSV is emphatically orienting itself on reinforcements. Even if Cody Gakpo is no longer taken away by Manchester United, the attack will be tackled. PSV wants to add another winger and a striker to the selection. PSV has now reported to Aston Villa for the position on the flank to take over ex-Ajacied Anwar El Ghazi. Van Nistelrooy would like to see reinforcements come in view of the intensive program for the coming period and the physical problems in his selection. “There is still a week to go. We’re going to see what comes next. We are looking internally, but that makes sense.”