Who will succeed Van Nistelrooij? ‘If Nagelsmann likes PSV, I would know’

• Aaron Golub

  Follows PSV on behalf of NOS Sport

PSV’s management must look for an entirely new technical staff for next season, including coach. That ball will start rolling only after the confrontation with AZ, today’s match on which the resigned Ruud van Nistelrooij did not want to wait any longer.

“Ruud is really a winner and he did a reasonable job, but he can react very strangely,” Huub Stevens, former coach of PSV, Roda JC and Schalke 04, among others, told me. “I saw too little in the way of building a team, even after players left in the interim. The development of the team, it was too messy. At least I didn’t see it reflected in the soccer.”

And so the right questions need to be asked within PSV’s organization, believes the former player and trainer of the Eindhoven side. “Do they go with a younger trainer again or do they take someone with more experience? Do you have to have a Dutch-speaking trainer with this group, in which international is spoken in the dressing room anyway?”

Stevens himself has not thought about returning, in any role. “I’ve been out of it for a while anyway and I really enjoy spending time with my grandchildren. You could still think about an advisory and support role, so to speak.”

Stevens continued: “I say something: a player I trained myself, with not so much experience in the coaching profession, I would like to assist. Take Alfred Schreuder, for example. He really could have been a candidate. A Dutch trainer who was free and played in PSV’s youth.”

Schreuder, who was fired from Ajax earlier this season, will reportedly make the move to Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates. Stevens and Schreuder worked together at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim. “At Ajax, he did not have the experience he needed to guide such a team on his own. Alfred needed someone beside him,” he explained.

Several names, with different profiles, remain on the market for PSV. But who should PSV really focus on? A few candidates in a row.

Stevens: “Peter Bosz could become coach of PSV. He is an experienced person, but of course he has not been that successful yet.” After Bosz’s dismissal from Olympique Lyonnais, he made it clear that he did see benefits in a move to Ajax. It has not yet led to anything concrete.

“He has trained quite a few clubs, also in a country like Germany. He does have a way of functioning that everyone knows. That is positive, for if PSV were to get him,” Stevens said.

If PSV are looking for head coaching experience, they won’t end up with AZ coach Pascal Jansen. Stevens: “But he has now put something down at AZ. That would then be a smaller step than the step Van Nistelrooij made when he became head coach.”