MARCO VAN GINKEL has been outstanding for PSV Eindhoven this season.
Captaining Phillip Cocu’s men and scoring 14 league goals from central midfield, Van Ginkel has fired the club to the Eredivisie title.
But the 25-year-old Dutchman is still a Chelsea player, loaned to PSV for the season and due to return to Stamford Bridge this summer.
Having impressed in Holland, will Van Ginkel finally be given a chance to show what he can do for his parent club?
Or is it time for the Blues to let the talented midfielder leave permanently? Our friends at Football Whispers have taken a look…
It’s extremely rare for a loan player to be handed the captain’s armband at a club.
But the fact that Van Ginkel has been PSV’s leader this season points to how influential the midfielder has been at the Philips Stadion.
And the player will feel very familiar to the Dutch club, as he comes to the end of his third loan spell in Eindhoven in the last three seasons.
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This term has been the most productive of his career, returning a career-high 16 goals in 32 games and helping PSV retain the title ahead of rivals Ajax.
Having first joined PSV on loan for the second half of the 2015-16 campaign, scoring eight times in 16 games, Van Ginkel returned last season.
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Injury cut that loan spell short – and then again ahead of this term.
As such, PSV likely feels more like home for the 25-year-old than Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea forked out £8million to sign then-20-year-old Van Ginkel from Vitesse in the summer of 2013, snapping up the prodigy who had just been named Dutch Talent of the Year.
However, despite being capped eight times for Holland at senior level, Van Ginkel has only made two Premier League appearances for Chelsea, and has been loaned out five times in the last four years.
The first loan was to AC Milan in Serie A and saw the Dutchman make 18 appearances in the Italian top flight, building valuable experience in a notoriously tactical and demanding league.
Upon his return in the summer of 2015, he was still deemed not ready for the Chelsea first team and was sent to Stoke for the 2015-16 campaign as part of the deal which saw goalkeeper Asmir Begovic join the Blues.
This move was seemingly aimed at giving Van Ginkel the chance to feature regularly in the Premier League – experience that would surely bode well for his prospects with his parent club.
However, after Stoke spent a club-record fee to sign Giannelli Imbula during the mid-season transfer window, Van Ginkel’s loan was cut short.
Rather than reintegrate the former Vitesse star into their own squad, Chelsea elected to loan the midfielder out again, this time for the first of his spells with PSV.
At 25, Van Ginkel is unlikely to relish the prospect of another loan move away from Stamford Bridge next season.
Having demonstrated his leadership and ability to score vital goals from midfield with PSV this term, the Dutch international has earned the chance to prove himself at his parent club.
And considering how some of the Blues’ current central midfield options have underwhelmed – not least £40m summer signing Tiemoue Bakayoko – Van Ginkel represents a strong option to add depth and quality to Antonio Conte’s squad.
However, if Chelsea aren’t willing to give Van Ginkel a place in their first-team squad for next season, they should allow the midfielder to seek permanent employment elsewhere.
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