In addition to your point about de facto championship match, that match is also the biggest obstacle standing in the way of an invincible season for PSV.
On the bench: Your PSV side today! 🔴⚪️#PECPSV pic.twitter.com/m4cOblOMo4— PSV (@PSV) February 24, 2024 Match is on ESPN+.
Scored the capper in a 7-1 win: PEPIIII! 🔥#PECPSV 1-7 pic.twitter.com/zr9GepeAkp— PSV (@PSV) February 24, 2024
Tillman credited with the assist according to google now which I think is the right call. Deft touch on a hard cross and great hustle from Pepi.
The goal (for a limited time only): Ricardo Pepi taps it home to make it 🇩🇪 7-1 🇧🇷 for PSV! 🚂🇺🇸[🎥: @FootColic]https://t.co/WL7YAERpk5— USMNT Otaku 🇺🇸 (@USMNTOtaku) February 24, 2024
Like his playing time? (He was like "Tillman did good things with a heavy 1st touch - I can too!" Pepi's scoring rate a sub is nuts. Every player should transfer to the best club (by far) in the league. That's very effective strategy.)
Is De Jong scoring all the goals for PSV or are the other strikers getting some goals here and there?
In 23 league games, PSV have scored an astonishing 77 goals - more than 3 per game - and De Jong has scored 22 of them. Nobody else has hit double figures so the goals are coming from all over the pitch, but Pepi is joint-third on 6 and Tillman is fifth on 5. BTW having sold Max Romero in January, Pepi is the only other striker on the roster. They obviously have a lot of confidence in his abilities - as well as De Jong's hamstrings & ACLs
This season, Pepi has scored 7 goals and registered 2 assists in 458 minutes of league or CL group stage play. That's a goal involvement for every 51 minutes he's been on the pitch or a goal every 65 minutes. Probably then best ever supersub was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, whose 160 goals or assists over 17,500 EPL or CL minutes produced a goal involvement for every 110 minutes played. Just a thought.
Anyone watching Liverpool in the league over the last month, never mind today's outstanding League Cup will have seen just how good a GK Ireland's Caoimhin Kelleher is. This has come as absolutely no surprise to anyone at Anfield, where his abilities have been recognized for some years now, but at Liverpool being outstanding isn't enough so he has to be Alisson's understudy. The reason he's accepted that is there were already certain advantages to being the heir-apparent at Anfield and with Becker out until the end of March, he's looking at an extended run in the side. If he plays well enough, it's going to be a little difficult to drop him with only 8 league games left in a title challenge, especially when he's already the designated GK in the FA Cup and the EL. The parallels with Pepi at PSV are, I think, obvious only Pepi is a striker and has an easier path to minutes and De Jong is much closer to retirement.
Luuk de Jong owes top season to extra rest: 'At this PSV, I honestly don't mind being substituted for Pepi' At the age of 33, Luuk de Jong is having perhaps his best season ever. The striker scores a lot and is the top fit booster at PSV, also next Sunday against Feyenoord. De Jong calls the choice he made determinative: quitting the national team and thus having extra moments of rest in a season. Maarten Wijffels 01-03-24, 07:00 Last update: 09:04
He didn't really have much of a role with the NT though right. They had RvP, Huntelaar for so many years and then a drop in quality up top with Depay, Weghorst and Gakpo in recent years.
40 caps over 11 years suggests that. He got called up a fair bit, especially after 2019, but he didn't get a whole lot of PT when he was in the squad
It's I think not about actual NT playing time, but more about a rest from intense NT training plus the mental stress of having to deliver when you get thrown in. When pinch hitters like him or Weghorst are put in, it's because we need the goals asap. Both him and Weghorst were splendid in that regard, but as such a player you carry that stress with you during training and when sitting on the bench. It's not just about minutes.
He wasnot, because he had given Koeman the message he retired. The whole discussion around it surfaced again with his good form.
Pepi did not get off the bench in a likely "title deciding" 2-2 with Feyenoord today. Tillman and Dest both went 90.