Marco van Ginkel returned to PSV for a third loan stint this past summer, picking up right where he left off in the second half of the previous season, notching six goals and three assists in the first nine matchdays of the Eredivisie season. On Thursday, he added a seventh goal for the season, this time in the second round of the Dutch Cup. Van Ginkel only played the 30 minutes of extra-time after the match finished 0-0 in regulation, and got PSV on the board with an improvised finish worthy of goal of the month or perhaps even year consideration.
As lovely as that goal is, and as great as it always is to see Van Ginkel play without any of the injury issues that have so plagued him since his transfer to Chelsea in 2013, it’s once again quite obvious that he’s just far too good for the Eredivisie level. He’s scored a staggering 21 goals (with 8 assists) in just 37 games for PSV now, and those are ridiculous figures for a central midfielder.
We had hoped that Van Ginkel would get a look-in this past summer under Conte — surely someone who could’ve done the job over Kyle Scott and Ethan Ampadu, to say the least — but that never quite materialized. With PSV making him captain, despite his theoretically temporary stay, they are clearly hoping to convince him to join on a permanent basis sooner rather than later as well. He will be turning 25 in less than two months, and will likely have to make a decision along those lines. MvG will have two years left on his Chelsea contract at the end of this season, and would fetch a pretty penny then, if nothing else...