Marco van Ginkel’s a bit more used to not playing football than most others. He hasn’t kicked a ball competitively since the end of the 2017-18 season, and had just started to return to training in the winter after 18 months out with the latest in his long-running series of knee injuries.
But that doesn’t mean that the current holding pattern is doing him any favors. In fact, it’s doing quite the opposite, casting his future in even more doubt thanks to an expiring contract with Chelsea and no prospect of talks with anyone else currently.
And that includes PSV as well, with whom the 27-year-old (27!) had found a bit of success when he did manage to put a couple healthy season together, and who would be expected to be interested again. That relationship is strong enough that these quotes actually come from a recent interview Van Ginkel did for PSV’s in-house video channel.
“We haven’t had contact [with Chelsea] about [the expiring contract] yet, but other things are of course more important now. I will hear it when the moment arrives.”
“I still have contact with people at PSV, but [we hadn’t talked] about a possible winter period transfer.”
Van Ginkel was not ready to play yet in January. We can only hope he’s ready whenever the new season does start, and wherever he may land.
For now, he’s continuing his rehab and keeping as fit as possible given the circumstances.
“The boys who live nearby can train in the stadium. So this is ideal for me. You only have to train on your own, so it is a bit boring. But I also trained in a park and the field is a lot [worse] there. It’s top notch in Stamford Bridge.”
-Marco van Ginkel; source: PSV TV via Football Oranje
Marco’s always loved himself some good pitches.