Bananas

A friend of mine who is a Panathinaikos supporter made an interesting point. I was telling during the season that Ferreira is all over the place and my friend said it's not his team - it's still Lucescu's team even though he's left. Maybe this is what it's all about.

No buy out clause for Tzolis. What is the world coming to.

That team ... with Ginola, Asprilla, Beardsley, great squad.

I have always rated Stafylidis. But right now he shouldn't be anywhere near the pitch. If you're not playing in your club team, how can you be expected to perform in the NT games. I don't buy the argument of because he's captain he has to be selected. There are plenty of other players capable of wearing the arm-band. Just hand it over to them and let Staf know he needs to start playing club football if he wants to be playing in the NT.

Any chance this will put a stop to the Limnios transfer ? I can only hope. Now I just have to decide which of the gods of Olympus I should make a sacrifice to. Yes, I'm bitter we're selling him so cheap.

You made my day Athens. Ha ha, Platini.

I agree some of the selections don't seem to make sense. But what are we to do when we're speculating with incomplete information. All we can go by is how the team is playing. Even that is a bit hard to judge since the level of the teams in the Nations League is definitely lower. Either way, it is obvious the team morale is much better, and the team just seems happier. I would add to that I think the player in general are enjoying the new style of play compared to the old defense first approach. What we can deduce is that JVS has an attitude of out with the older veterans and he'll be using the Nations League to try out new players in preparation. Remember, the Nations League is essentially a replacement for friendly games, but now it's got an added attraction with promotion/relegation and the carrot of making tournaments. Vlachodimos I believe in the long run will be the GK for the NT. I think JVS is just seeing what some of the other players have to offer. Retsos it's too hard to say - he's been injured for a long time. Kourbelis and Zeca in the middle is not ideal except under circumstances where you want to lock a game down. Hopefully he can find a third option - and by that I don't include Samaris who I have never rated. As for the veterans who have been shown the door, I don't feel sorry for any of them. They had their chances - the only one who might make it back is Manolas. As to the overall quality gap, you may be right, I'm not denying it. All I know is the old boys just weren't cutting it anymore. Let's see what the next 12 months show us. I would expect nothing less than to win this group with ease and hopefully a few players are discovered that can be potential squad players. Where were Giannoulis and Limnios 18 months ago ? And now all of a sudden they are options. They aren't necessary, there are options for both. But it's nice to know they are available and capable.

What about Box, like from Logan's Run. Now I'm showing my nerdy side.

So guaranteed 8 million. Pfft, money isn’t everything, tell em to shove it I say. 😀

Which players exactly is it that you want back in the team ? Is it just Manolas and Sokratis ? I don't understand why you can't accept these two players aren't being called up. We aren't there in the NT camp to know what went on behind the scenes. Maybe these guys are toxic and it affects the team. Or maybe they are ok, but JVS like many managers has an ego, and wanted any players that could undermine him removed. Or maybe JVS just doesn't want man marking CB's and considers them no good for the style he wants to play. It's all speculation. Maybe one day we'll get an answer.

The point with Limnios is he should've had his contract extended mid way through last season. How you can have a player who is 22, is beginning to cement his place in the team, and don't extend his contract I don't understand. Then again I'm still trying to work out why we have minimum fee clauses. Overall, most unimpressed with our back office dealings.

Maybe he's saying he should get kicked out and replaced with Manolas. Wouldn't that be funny.

3M for Limnios considering he's managed to make himself a first team player at PAOK and the National Team is way too cheap. I hope we don't sell him for such a small amount. Same goes for Giannoulis.

Well I guess if Siovas is dropped from the NT we'll know why, ha ha. Doesn't sound like the brightest spark - he could've worded it better. Siovas to Svarnas "You're not that good bro". But I guess Svarnas will probably decipher what he was trying to say, I don't think Siovas meant to be nasty.

The rumour mill says it's a done deal with NOVA for a bit over 7M. Kinda disappointed we didn't stick it to em.

I did see a rumour about Rodrigues to Olympiacos a week ago. Didn't even bother posting about it. He was definitely good for us but not so sure these days. He seems all over the place. Also, his wage expectations will be quite high.

Hard to say if we'll go for the 7M from Nova. That equates to 100,000 subscribers. Question is if the club want to keep the momentum moving with PAOK TV, which would indicate they plan for this to really be for the long term, or whether it was a negotiating tactics to extract more out of NOVA moving forward. I guess we'll see.

I am not bothering to post anymore in the USA 2020 Elections thread since some of my posts, which I thought were really benign, got deleted.

I just had a look at their transfers, both players bought and sold, they are on another level. We are like PAS Giannina budget wise compared to them. That being said, hopefully they lack match fitness and we can catch them on the day. The ball is round as they say.

3.5M for Giannoulis is way too low. The club should be pushing for 5M minumum, and even at that price I won't be happy to see him go. He won't be easy to replace. As for Paschalakis, I'm just not seeing anyone giving anything substantial for him, in which case what's the point ? Maybe he wants to go and play overseas in which case fair enough, but from the club's perspective I don't see his sale as a priority by any means. Either way, any two of Rey, Paschalakis and Zivkovic will do for now.

I did read they had a whinge about it but I thought it was just for the Turkish newspapers and fans. https://www.dailysabah.com/sports/football/paok-knocks-besiktas-down-to-europa-league-with-3-1-defeat Apparently El Kaddouri should have been sent off ? Malintent - such a nasty word. I love it when they get salty, ha ha. Quote: Yalçın also blamed the referees for questionable choices, saying that one of the goals PAOK scored was likely an offside but the absence of a video-assisted referee (VAR) system made it impossible to know for sure. “We didn’t expect such bad calls from the referees. They made terrible calls. You would never see referees with such malintent in the Champions League. PAOK’s No. 7 (Omar El Kaddouri) would have been sent out at least three times in a normal match,” he fumed.

Michailidis and Tzolis have sort of come out of nowhere. They are both from the U/20's and got zero games during the regular season. In the play offs, Michailidis played 90 minutes in the last 4 games. Granted by then the title race was over so he got given a shot and seems to have seized the opportunity. With Ferreira now switching to a formation with 3 CB's it seems he will get even more game time. By all accounts he's good with his feet i.e. more technical than your average CB. How good is he ? Time will tell. I am kind of surprised by the call up, but maybe JVS is onto something. Even if he's not quite ready to play, just being in the NT environment might give him that shot of confidence to push his career along. He's got a decent free kick on him too. Check out his free kick at 4:33. Likewise with Tzolis. Got called up during the play offs. Started in a bunch of them and has shown enough to become part of the squad. He socred a goal nice goal in the play offs and popped in two against Besiktas so again there is something there. It's up to them now how far they can go. If they take their career seriously (more training, less Mykonos) and have some luck with injuries, who knows. Either way, it's refreshing to see youngsters like this with some potential being given an opportunity.

Ha ha, love the passionate commentary. 😄

All I know is when we had Sokratis and Manolas we were losing to heavy weights like Faroe Islands. In addition we were creating 2 or 3 good chances per match! What was worse though, was the brand of football we were playing. It was sad, I mean depressing and downright embarrassing. It was what you would see from a bunch of players who have retired and now play in pensioner leagues and can't be assed anymore. Compare that to what we have now where the team plays open football, runs and creates 20+ chances per game. I know which I prefer. As to how much Sokratis and Manolas are to blame we can only speculate. Maybe they are at fault, maybe they aren't and they've been made scapegoats. Unless you're in there in the club rooms and at the training sessions you can't really know. All I know is JVS kicked them out and now the team is flying in comparison to what it was. Maybe one day Manolas might get a call up and if so I trust JVS to make that decision. End of the day, I'm fine with both of them not being in the team because something was obviously *VERY* wrong.

I'm with paokarag4 concerning El Kaddouri. He has very good technique and composure and I think that's why managers like him. He knows the game. He definitely switches on for bigger games or maybe it could be the extra space on the pitch suits him and he can play his game. For your average GSL match where the opposition park the bus he does seem disinterested and struggles to get into the match. He doesn't have that ability to impose himself or force a situation in those sorts of games. He has his place in the squad. Happy to have him if he'd like to stay but if he goes I think we'll be fine.