Football Season Guide

PSV U21 were absolutely woeful for the majority of last season as they lost a number of games while playing some truly abysmal football, especially in defence. They seemed far too fickle and just generally unable to hold their ground when put under some pressure. The squad was actually pretty impressive on paper but just never really made sense as a unit and a lot of that blame should fall on the shoulders of an experienced coach like Alfons Gronendijk. He has naturally been let go and the club decided to give a coach in-house the chance to develop the new youngsters this season in former plater Stijn Schaars. The 41-year-old has been working at the PSV academy since 2019 and comes with real knowledge of the players that have been developing for the past few years along with the enthusiasm to prove himself and show that he can be a very capable coach. The coach will have to work with quite a new-look group in the season to come as a series of important players have been allowed to leave and joined other teams. The likes of Emmanuel van den Blaak, Enzo Geerts, Jesper Uneken and Kjell Peersman will not be easy to be replaced but the hopes that some of the new faces in the group are better prepared for the challenges ahead, most in terms of physically and grit, and stand for themselves against lesser talented sides that do like to rough them up.