{"id":10884,"date":"2025-03-03T15:50:33","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T15:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10884"},"modified":"2025-03-04T22:15:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T22:15:16","slug":"you-me-and-psv-familiar-foes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10884","title":{"rendered":"You, Me and PSV – Familiar Foes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What a lovely Arsenal free weekend that was! No 90 minutes wasted watching 11 blokes passing the ball slowly backwards and sideways in their own half as though they haven\u2019t a care in the world. I spent yesterday watching the two FA Cup games that were on. First Newcastle lost at home in extra time to Brighton. I very much enjoyed Anthony Gordon\u2019s red card. Having been to SJP twice this season and witnessed firsthand how mouthy some of their fans are, I have developed a deep disdain for the Barcodes. One of the biggest clubs in England in their own minds. Troglodytes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I then watched Man United lose on pens at home to Fulham which was even more hilarious. One of my favourite things about football is how much of it is about wishing failure on others as it is about your own club winning. I\u2019m not sure any other sport can really match that. Not to the same extent anyway. Imagine how much fun we\u2019d have if we only played one game a month or something like that. Actually, we\u2019d get bored of inaction very quickly, but it would at least give us more time to laugh at others. Isn\u2019t that what life is all about? I think it might be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I will put an end to this digression and start my preview because we do, a little bit unfortunately, have a game ourselves tomorrow evening. PSV Eindhoven awaits us in the first leg of our Champions League RO16 tie. A stage in which seven of our last eight UCL campaigns have crashed and burned. Bodes well! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PSV stands for Phillips Sport Vereniging. They were founded by a group of Phillips employees in 1913 and have gone on to establish themselves as one of Holland\u2019s \u2018big 3\u2019 clubs along with Ajax and Feyenoord who were our other possible opponent for this round. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have a good history domestically and in Europe winning the Eredivisie 25 times and 11 Dutch Cups. some of you will be old enough to recall (apologies for the reminder of your oldness!) their UEFA Cup success in 1978 and their European Cup triumph a decade later. Some incredibly famous names have turned out for PSV over the years including Ruud Guilit, Ronald Koeman, Romario and the Brazillian Ronaldo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do have some history with PSV, some of it very recent indeed. This will be our third double header with PSV in three seasons. They are very much our new Olympiakos\/Bayern\/Barca. However, prior to that, our first meeting was at the same stage of the competition back in 2007. Following a 1-0 defeat in Eindhoven, a 1-1 draw at the Emirates dumped us out of the competition at the first knockout round having reached the final the previous year. The Brazillian Alex, who you might remember went on to play for Chelsea for a few seasons, scored at both ends that day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had to wait 15 years for our next encounter with PSV, as the two sides were drawn together in the Europa League Group stages in 2022\/23. A 1-0 win at the Emirates was followed by a 2-0 reverse in Holland. However, we still managed to top the group with PSV going through as runners up. It was a similar story the following season, as we were again placed in a group with PSV, this time back in the Champions League. In our first game back in the competition in seven seasons we absolutely hammered them that night, a 4-0 win on probably the wettest night on record at the Emirates. The walk back to Finsbury Park Tube was horrendous. My jacket is still in the tumble dryer! We travelled back to Eindhoven on matchday 6 for what was a dead rubber (remember those?) and played out a 1-1 draw. Again, we won the group with PSV going through as runners up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This does of course mean we are yet to win in Eindhoven. Our recentish record in Holland isn\u2019t exactly sparkling, the only other Dutch side we have played in the last 20 years is AZ Alkmaar back in 2009 with whom we drew 1-1 in Holland although we did beat them at home. Going by the UEFA website, our last win in Holland came against Ajax in 2005. We went on to reach the final that year so could that be a good omen should we win tomorrow? Of course not because why would a result 20 years ago against a different team have any bearing on this result or any future results? It can\u2019t but it\u2019s the kind of pointless stat you\u2019d read on a BBC Sport preview as though it\u2019s supposed to mean anything. We really are streets ahead of those guys when it comes to quality of publications over here at GoonerholicsForever.com. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what about PSV in their current iteration? Well, they are the current Dutch Champions having won the title at a canter last season. However, this season they sit second, eight points behind Ajax having lost 3-2 to Go Ahead Eagles on Saturday evening. They do have some decent players including former Spud Ivan Perisic who was instrumental in their play off victory over Juventus, as was midfielder Ismael Saibari. Also amongst their ranks are highly rated USA international Malik Tillman and Man United loanee, Tyrell Malacia. In January they signed a certain Lucas Perez formerly of this parish of course. He will no doubt have the game of his life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PSV generally adopt an attacking front foot approach. Last season they whacked in 111 goals in 34 Eredivisie games. They are managed by Peter Bosz who has had spells at Dortmund, Leverkusen and Lyon. Bosz likes to adopt a possession-based game with aggressive high pressing. Our 4-0 trouncing of them last season was very much an anomaly in their season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are likely to have two very tough games against very able opponents. Given our lack of options, the team pretty much picks itself and we will likely be reliant on our sturdy defence and set pieces. To be truthful, I\u2019d take a draw if you offered it to me now. We have no fresh injury concerns as of now, although I\u2019m sure Arteta will reveal in his press conference later that the squad has been ravaged by the three headed hamstring monster, and we will now have to play Win the Dog and Gunnersaurus in attack with Sterling in goal and \u00d8degaard\u2019s new baby at left back. It honestly wouldn\u2019t surprise me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not even a mythical three headed creature can stop me from predicting a win. The score will be 1-0 to The Arsenal with Merino nutting in a header from a corner. Win the Dog with the assist and Gunnersaurus to be shown a straight red for decapitating the head of a PSV player which according to Michael Oliver doesn\u2019t come under the remit of serious foul play. Thankfully he won\u2019t be in charge tomorrow although I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll somehow find a way to make it all about him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

COYG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a lovely Arsenal free weekend that was! No 90 minutes wasted watching 11 blokes passing the ball slowly backwards and sideways in their own half as though they haven\u2019t a care in the world. I spent yesterday watching the two FA Cup games that were on. First Newcastle lost at home in extra time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10884"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10884"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10888,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10884\/revisions\/10888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}