Eindhoven’s efficient wings, Monaco’s defensive misunderstandings
AS Monaco fell (3-2) against PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday evening at the Philips Stadion after extra time. Here are the Tops and Flops of the match.
TOPS
The wings of PSV
Coach Ruud van Nistelrooy can attribute his pistons, authors of a great performance. If the PSV players did not dominate the meeting, they refrained from being effective on almost all their attacking opportunities – unlike AS Monaco. This offensive production, almost lethal, is explained by the formidable performances of the right side with the trio Mwene-Sangaré-Saibari omnipresent on most of the dangerous actions of PSV. On the other side, Joey Veerman and Cody Gakpo were able to take advantage on their left flank of the numerous losses of Monegasque balls. Each of the three Dutch achievements is moreover the work of a center or an overflow on the sides.
Strong replacements
While his team struggled to be dangerous in front of the goal, the changes made by coach Philippe Clément turned out to be quite good despite the final result. Came into play Caio Henrique (53rd) was omnipresent in the game, taking charge of titling the corner which brought the equalizer for Maripan (58th). Same observation for Gelson Martins (68th), decisive passer for Wissam Ben Yedder (70th) a few seconds after having walked on the lawn. Also substitutes at the start of the game, Krépin Diatta (53rd) and Beel Embolo (46th) boosted Monegasque offensive production by having real clear chances.
On the PSV side, it should be noted the very good entry of Erick Gutierrez, author of the decisive equalizer (88th) on an action induced by the young Johan Bakayoko, also entering the game, which allowed the Eindhoven players to go into overtime.
FLOPS
The defensive wanderings of Monaco
AS Monaco lost their qualification largely due to their multiple defensive disagreements. On the opener, PSV took advantage of the huge spaces left by Monaco on their right side to perfectly find Joey Veerman at the entrance to the surface, free to score everything. Gutierrez’s equalizer is also due to a bad positioning of the defense on the center Bakayoko and a bad marking on the Mexican. And finally, the last scorer Luuk de Jong was completely forgotten at the far post, allowing his head to be crossed and giving qualification to the Dutch. Of all three goals from Eindhoven, the Monegasque defense is guilty.
Monegasque inefficiency
Comment Did Monaco manage to lose this match? This is the question that is burning all Monegasque lips tonight. With 28 strikes in 120 minutes and a possession of 53%, the players of the Rock lacked variety in their animation, suffering from a crying offensive sterility. They hit the post twice and more than once missed their final moves. Philippe Clément’s players had the opportunities to take the dreams of the meeting, without ever really worrying Walter Benitez, the PSV goalkeeper. Only seven shots on target, a low ratio largely explained by the waste and other errors of Kevin Volland (34th), Alexander Golovin (8th) or Wissam Ben Yedder (1st, 45th).