Journalist provides explanation: ‘PSV latched onto that.’

He has long been a top-flight, regular player for Bundesliga club Hoffenheim and he was paid handsomely for him. PSV target Mats Rots made his choice without batting an eyelid for a move to the Bundesliga, where he will probably face the same trajectory as, for example, Salah-Edinne.

For Salah-Edinne too, a few good months in Enschede offered the option of a bid for Serie A. Is FC Twente the new AZ? It could well be, but whether Salah-Edinne really becomes better from the path through Twente, AS Roma, PSV, and then back again to AS Roma is still very much open to question. Will Rots play for Hoffenheim, play a lot, of course? No, probably not.

PSV could therefore, for instance, easily approach Mats Rots again during the winter break, who then, for example after his transfer from FC Twente to Hoffenheim, might only have made a few minutes in the German cup competition. PSV wanted to sign Rots from FC Twente this summer, but of course they did not offer thirteen million euros plus three million euros in bonuses for Rots.

"Players like these, who have played for a year in the Eredivisie, are no longer affordable for the Dutch top end", says FC Twente watcher and, at the same time, passionate Twente fan Leon ten Voorde on De Ballen Verstand from Tubantia. "PSV has just dropped out on the transfer fee. They think sixteen million for a fullback who still has a lot to prove is too much", Ten Voorde points to the total including the bonuses.

"Somehow I get that, but on the other hand I also think: what kind of player category would PSV then be getting? Because I do think Rots is really a talent. And there’s still a lot he has to improve, and with his shortcomings he won’t manage to get by in Germany either, but... This kind of guy is already skipping the top in the Netherlands."

"They go straight through to abroad at once. I myself was very surprised by TSG Hoffenheim as a new destination. I didn’t see this coming. But in advance, I do say that it is a sensible choice, although I also would have found a stopover at PSV sensible", concludes the journalist his analysis of the transfer of Rots to Hoffenheim.