Rome | “Marcel Brands and Earnie Stewart made a mistake”

At De Telegraaf, people are certain about the departure of Anass Salah-Edinne from PSV. This could have been prevented, says not PSV watcher Jeroen Kapteijns but Ajax watcher Mike Verweij.

Despite a good season at PSV, the club management has not managed to persuade left-back Anass Salah-Eddine to permanently swap AS Roma for PSV. Salah-Eddine was on loan last season and, after the World Cup, returns to Rome to fight for his spot with the red club from the Italian capital.

The defender is currently playing with Morocco at the World Cup in North America and made an excellent impression at the start of last season under coach Peter Bosz. The second half of the season saw Salah-Eddine play a bit less due to injuries.

Still, at De Telegraaf they are critical of the fact that PSV lets the left-back go back to AS Roma. ''Saibari will of course leave PSV, but the absence of Salah-Eddine is also starting to be felt in Eindhoven'', says journalist Mike Verweij in the podcast Kick-off from De Telegraaf.

Afterwards, PSV watcher Jeroen Kapteijns joins the discussion surrounding the left back and talks about a sensitive loss for PSV. ''He can play on the inside and that is very important in the football of Peter Bosz. It really is a sensitive loss, although he has been less involved in the second half of the season due to injuries'', Kapteijns said.

Verweij also points his critical finger at PSV’s club leadership. ''Marcel Brands and Earnest Stewart are praised a lot for the policy. That is very often deserved; it is stable and, again and again, it’s been good teams. But with Salah-Eddine, of course, they made a mistake,' he points to both board members.

'If you hire someone with an option to buy, then you always have to make sure there is an underlying contract for the player in place. Now PSV wanted to pay the limited transfer fee of eight million euros. Only then did Salah-Eddine say, together with his agent, that he is going back to AS Roma. As a result, PSV was left scratching its head. They could do nothing. That is not a strong example,' the journalist concludes.