This is the wrong thread but I'll bite. I think Pepi gets more minutes this season for several reasons: 1) The organization paid him a lot and they know he needs minutes to drive up his sell-on price. 2) LDJ is getting older and it's difficult to play that many minutes w/o taking a knock.... especially at his age. It would also help if LDJ doesn't score at the same clip and is therefore not pushing for the golden boot.
I honestly thought I posted in the other thread. @dark knight @bungadiri can you move before this back and forth continues here?
On the bench: Matteo from the start 😍#PSVGAE pic.twitter.com/AZ27IIzeDl— PSV (@PSV) September 1, 2024 Match is on ESPN+.
Early appearance in the 35th with a Luuk De Jong injury: Luuk valt uit. Beterschap 🍀➡️ Ricardo Pepi⬅️ Luuk De Jong #PSVGAE— PSV (@PSV) September 1, 2024
Early reports are that the thigh injury was not serious but PSV didn't want to take any risks. We'll see if that's true. PSV have a very busy and important fall coming up. Key games are: 9/17 - Juve 9/22 - Fortuna (still a "top 5" team, tho this games less "big" than it might seem. Sittard will not be challenging for long.) 10/1 - Sporting 10/19 - AZ (PSV's most potent league challenge ATM) 10/22 - PSV 11/2 - Ajax - (a key game, from a bragging standpoint, even if Ajax is still a hot mess come Nov. 11/5 - Girona 11/27 - Donetsk 12/1 - Utrecht 12/8 - Twente - likely to be still in the top half at least by Dec. (does this get postponed with a 12/10 match? Can't remember what they usually do.) 12/10 - Brest 12/22 - Feyenoord (I just put this in to keep Feyeniefan happy.... don't tell them) And, of course, scattered in there are the usual league suspects. If Bosz is happy with Pepi and wants to bubble wrap LdJ for the big games, we could see it a bit over the next couple of weeks. I doubt LdJ wants to take too much time on the bench, but could be a bit more than we're used to, which would be awesome.
The real crunch weeks are: Sat, Oct 19 - AZ Alkmaar Tue, Oct 22 - Paris Saint-Germain Sat, Oct 26 - PEC Zwolle Sat, Nov 2 - Ajax Tue, Nov 5 - Girona and Wed, Nov 27 - Shakhtar Donetsk Sun, Dec 1 -FC Utrecht Sun, Dec 8 - FC Twente Tue, Dec 10 - Brest Sun, Dec 15 - Heerenveen Sun, Dec 22 - Feyenoord Rotterdam If LdJ is really going to run out of gas, these are the most likely times. There's a 2 week break in front of the 10/19 AZ game, but PSG away on the heels of the AZ game is a lot of playing and travel. If Pepi gets a start, Zwolle is as good a place as any, esp with another short turn around between Ajax and Girona (although at least Girona is home) The 12/15 Heerenveen game is another that has "rest LdJ" written all over it, as it would come after a very short turnaround between Twente and Brest. Twente also looks like a game where you could imagine seeing LdJ out earlish, or even rested depending on how he's holding up. Will be interesting to see how Bosz manages him this year. My guess is we see him rest a decent amount more, but who knows.
Bosz addressed the injury in the postgame presser. I have to find the original Dutch cause this is the craziest bot translation ever: In the first half Luuk de Jong fell out, how is that going now? "Well I was shocked, because the fourth man said the VAR had seen it go in. It turned out he had an ice bone once in the game against Feyenoord and that was playing up again now. It's nothing serious." Other things of note - Junior back from injury soon so can go either way about bringing in another LB. But Dams is the "surprise of the season..." (Not Ledezma!!) Off to try to find out what the VAR saw going in the ice bone and why LdJ is playing up now....
Well, the problem is that the Dutch idiom PB used is hard to translate. PB used the Dutch term "inschieten", which in this situation means something completely different from normal speech. In this situation it means an injury/pain suddenly manifests itself, while normally it means "shoot in". "It turned out he had an ice bone once in the game against Feyenoord and that was playing up again now. It's nothing serious.".. PB uses the term "ijsbeentje", which was literally translated into "ice bone". PB tells against Feyenoord LdJ received a socalled "paardenkus" (literally: horsekiss), which is a knee against your upperleg muscle, which results in an "ijsbeentje", which is a muscle contusion. So when the 4th man told PB the Var saw an injury manifest itself, he was afraid a muscle injury happened, but that wasnot the case.
We usually call that a Charley Horse or muscle bruise. So the 4th official saw a bruise develop where LdJ has gotten a knee to the muscle v Feynoord. They checked VAR and after much debate called for a switch! I have to change my tune - Feyenoord is good for something! lol.