One year on a top team as a vet/captain's understudy, watching and/or playing the likes of Arsenal and Sevilla in meaningful matches is not going to hurt Pepi. Would it be better if he were the guy starting and scoring goals and floating in the top-5 for G and A on a record breaking team? Sure. But Everyone important in footie is aware of this PSV team. They all know of the Sevilla goal. They all know how old Pepi is. They will all know how to contact Bosz or Stewart... If he was understudy on Fortuna or Sparta, maybe you want to get off the bus, but this is looking to be a historic year, with a lot of attention on a seriously talented team. I just don't see the downside, esp after proving his durability and consistency last season. As long as he keeps snagging goals and playing well in his minutes, this year will be a positive for Pepi. And Luuk will break down at some point - and Pepi will get a chance to seal his fate.
No one is asking for or expecting Pepi to be the main guy at PSV this season so I agree that the back up role is serving him well given the situation... I think the majority, like myself, are merely asking for more than 12 minutes a game given his form in said limited minutes. It just makes more sense to keep players fresh and involved... so that if injuries force your hand the replacements are ready to pick up the slack.
I don't think many people argue against this in theory. The issue for Pepi is who he is behind. It's kind of like when Sarge was waiting on Pukki to stumble. When a guy is a vet, a "talismanic striker" as the cliche goes, who is also captain - and is battling for scoring titles, you only sit him if he wants a rest or you have a darn good reason. Looking from Luuk's POV - do you think he wants anything more than winning the league and the scoring title in one season? Probably one of his last seasons as a regular 90 minute guy? If I'm LdJ, I know every minute I don't play is a minute I can't score/assist. And if you're Bosz, the only argument against Luuk playing is "you might get hurt/put on too many miles." He can't point to results, except Sevilla, or LdJ's output or any practical metric. and LdJ says "I feel fine, I wanna play" why would Bosz push it? Add to that Pepi seems perfectly capable of contributing even with limited minutes, it's just hard to see how things change unless Luuk decides he wants a break - or gets injured. I'd love Pepi to play more, I just don't see the logic to it until/unless Luuk agrees - or Bosz goes to a 2 Tall Striker set-up!
Pepi starting for Jong PSV today. I guess an opportunity to get/stay match fit. Brian Sciaretta on X: "Ricardo Pepi is starting for Jong PSV today vs NAC Breda After scoring the biggest goal of his life last week, he’s with the second team today" / X (twitter.com)
Had to play the entire game, but I think Pepi protested sufficiently by not scoring, despite PSV’s substantial edge in possession and the same number of shots. Final score: Jung PSV 0-5 NAC Breda
It's de-motivating to go from sending your team to the KO stage of the Champions' League to the next week playing in the Dutch 2nd division. There's no benefit. If you want him to have a keep fit, set up a testspiel w/ the nominal 1st team, as they often do.
Citing Boszley's Hair Restoration System President Peter's record so far this season as a get out of jail free card for everything is pretty damn specious btw. Everybody's fallible. And it's not like he's even Pep or Klopp. He's the guy who had a shambolic tenure at Dortmund instead. Have you heard of this thing called fixture congestion leading to tiredness of your players and thus diminishing returns in football? If you have a deep squad, you don't have to do that, especially if you have the leeway they do playing in the Eredivisie and being 10 points clear ATM. And you benefit continuing to deepening that squad while keeping your competitors happy.
I could say the same to you. Glad you aren't advising a player who just played & succeeded at the highest level to play at among the lowest, when that's been known to stunt development. He could have said he's a first team player now, outside of rehab and major rust stints. And no reasonable club would make anything of it. They don't benefit significantly from their reserves winning by itself. And it didn't even pay off. They lost by 5. From the Dutch locals I'm seeing right now it's a combo of being irked by the decision also, in addition to mockery.
Dutch tv soccer show Studio Voetbal with van Hooijdonk/Affelay among others commenting on the match and they highlighted the role LdJ played in disrupting the powertool of Feyenoord. Feyenoord's weapon is the build up from the back line with fast passing into and out of the midfield. In the footages from the match they showed the tight tandem operation of LdJ with either Vertessem or Til to make the fast play out of the back line impossible. It was an impressive feat of them, as it basically robbed Gimenéz of being fed by fast moving and combining players. I constantly read comments that make me think do you ever look at a match as a strategic game that uses the qualities of certain players to reach a goal or do you watch a game as a series of individual performances of players who also happen to be on the same team? Guess how Dutch look at that.
Peter Bosz could have chosen to go to Rotterdam with the cushion of a 7 points lead and lean back to see if he could hit on the counter. He chose to tackle Feyenoord's strength in Rotterdam with a line up that was daring with the mission to hurt Feyenoord badly and put us at 10 points. The mofo succeeded
You think it'd be a good idea to refuse? honestly? Without even know how the dialogue about joining the game went? Cmon.
Partial report of the match Pepi played against NAC. Notice Bosz made time to watch it!! https://www.vi.nl/nieuws/ontketend-nac-sloopt-jong-psv-en-houdt-miljoenenspits-pepi-in-de-zak "In the 2nd half, the ambitions of the Eindhoven team, followed from the stands by head coach Bosz, quickly came to an end. Peersman was the schlemiel again. The goalkeeper hopelessly floored Garbett, after which the ball went on the spot. Top scorer Dominic Janosek made no mistake (0-2). It didn't stop there, because immediately afterwards Janosek scored the third Breda goal on a wave of euphoria. The Czech star found Roy Kuijpers after a flowing pirouette and the attacker made no mistake (0-3). While the impotent Pepi continued his agony deeper and deeper into the pocket of defensive center Cuco Martina and Jan Van den Bergh, it was another striker who provided the final chord. Sigurd Haugen made the Breda Monday evening party even more beautiful on a pass from Garbett (0-4). He did so again just before time, which crowned him a resounding victory (0-5). As a result, Van Gastel's NAC is gradually joining the broad top of the K K Division."
It's rather funny to read dismissive comments on our second tier as in the last two Orange Squad matches 3 players were on the pitch who two seasons ago were playing at that level.
Imagine thinking you need to defend slumming it in the Dutch 2nd division after scoring a huge Champions' League winner. Many of your own fans are saying it's ridiculous. But they're just fans,. not crusaders.
The only dialogue I could fathom which would be reasonable is it's to ramp up his fitness in a plan to start him against Arsenal. In a vacuum it's garbage. And not shocking it led to the result it did. This shouldn't be used against him. He's already proven at Eredivisie-level, at minimum, let alone the Eerste.
NAC is an ambitious former Eredivisie club eager to return to the highest level with around 18,500 fans each match in the stands, which provides a tough test for any player to play against them. So it's not a coincidence PB decided to let Pepi face them, it's a serious level of resistance to meet.
I have a hard time envisioning a proven 1st division player who's been a semi-regular at the club suggesting he play in the 2nd division, especially w/ a game in a few days. That has to come from the club, and their ideas on how to develop him, some fringe interest they have in the reserve's outcome, or it being part of a fitness plan while they can't be bothered to just play him a significant amount yesterday when it mattered.
Keep in mind that Duke graduated top of his class from Hyperbole College, not surprisingly the alma mater of several posters here.
We don't know what objectives PB had with this, so it's useless to suppose it was a failure. The fact is that PB was sitting there to watch it, so obviously he had an intention with Pepi showing up there. If it only ment to serve the purpose of keeping up play fitness, he wouldnot be there as he would/could get those data from the staff.
If I was even at the college, I got a D, since I wasn't acting like he was better than LDJ already. Whereas you were at the top of your class at Passive-Aggressive University.