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Bananas

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Everything posted by Bananas

  1. See, the thing is, even though it's been reported as 3-5-2, I saw it more as a 5-3-2. The reasoning being that since we have such porous defense, and Tudor being a defender (in Italy, the land of D-E-F-E-N-S-E), that he wanted to get this sorted out first. I didn't really see it as 3 at the back. More like 5. Or rather, 3 in the CB to make up for the fact that 2 CB's kept leaking goals. But, I could be wrong, and like anything, it all depends what the other players are instructed, and how they implement it. We shall see. @ pontos, genius :)
  2. I actually don't mind it Blackhawk. Or I should say, I'm happy to try it for a while. Our normal 4-2-3-1 wasn't exactly uber successful and we were leaking goals like crazy. The system in and of itself means nothing. How attacking or defensive it is depends on the midfield. If the 2 wingbacks and the 3 in the middle play close to the defensive line, then it's a defensive system. If they are instructed to generally not track back, then it's attacking. Like any system, it's fluid and it all depends what happens in the game. It's like when I see line ups of teams when they play say Barcelona or Man Utd. And the opposition are 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1, but once the game starts, the opposition are more like 4-6-0 with 4 in the backline standing at the "D" of their box, and the other 6 players 3 metres in front of them.
  3. One of the better articles on what has happened in the last few weeks. http://www.france24.com/en/20150716-greece-bailout-killing-dream-europe-germany-grexit-brexit
  4. Agree about the airport Gyros. As long as it's done right. Not privatizing it and leaving it in the state is in hasn't exactly been a success story. In fact, it's a disgrace. All I'm hoping for is it's not sold off at a fire sale price with dodgy agreements where subsidies and/or cut price taxes are part of the package. Just sell it at a fair market price and tax fairly.
  5. To be fair, it's not like Greece went up to Slovakia and said "can you please give me some money to support my lifestyle". It was the EU that pressured them to do this. Honestly, why the hell the EU would even ask a country like Slovakia for money to help Greece, shows what a mess of an organisation they are. The average citizen of Slovakia probably has the "right" now to be angry at Greece, and to enjoy the bashing Greece has been getting. And that's how politics works my friends.
  6. Sure is. It's Minsc from Baldur's Gate. I got inspired because a new game in the series has been announced ... after 15 years. Baldur's Gate 2 was released in 2000 and this new expansion is meant to be set in between the two, in terms of chronology. So it's a midquel ?!I've posted a youtube link/video on the announcement in the Video Games thread. Getting my geek s--t on ... You must gather your party before venturing forth ...
  7. I don't know if it's a German asset grab. But it's definitely an asset grab. I imagine overseas entities will only be interested in assets that are cheap or very profitable, which is only logical. As to the composition of the fund, no details have been provided yet. It's also political point scoring from Schauble, who is seen in Germany as the tough German teaching those Greeks a lesson. This has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility or about getting Greece out of the hole.
  8. pash, Cambiasso actually had a great season in the EPL. He was inspiring. Having said that, I don't want him to come to PAOK. Also, regarding Lucas, if that was the case, why did he pay his fine ? pontos, looks like the deal is now not so close ... according to sport24.gr anyway.
  9. Blackhawk, in my mind the whole problem with the team is you can't trust any of them to perform on any given day. Our players are so up and down. I would say the only player you know what you're going to get is Kace. That's it. You know that say 8 or 9 out of 10 games, he'll perform at a given standard. All the rest, and I mean all the rest, you don't know what you're going to get. Some are obviously better than others in terms of their consistency, but honestly, it feels like a roll of the dice a lot of the time. Will Lucas play if selected ? Hold on, let me roll some dice and I'll give you an answer .... ;)
  10. I wonder what has set him off so badly. Maybe he genuinely feels he was picked on ? Or do you think the transfer rumors have some truth to them.
  11. jvc, right now it doesn't matter what "reforms" Greece implements. The gig is up. The issue is a macro one, not micro. What the EU (Germany) did by convincing the ECB to withdraw funding to Greek banks should be an eye opener to everyone that reads this thread. Apart from the fact the it was morally despicable, it's just not how a monetary union works. Such a thing would never happen in say the US. The US government doesn't just withdraw all funding to California or Detroit because they are having serious problems. The EU (Germany) want it to be an economic entity but without fiscal transfers. I get that they find this morally reprehensible. But if that's the case, you can't have an EU that can work. Not in the long run anyway. Just have a look at Europe now. It's a mess. Austerity is always contractionary. Always. This is macro economic 101. And what the EU has gotten Greece to agree to is austerity on steroids. It will only make things worse. There isn't a chance in hell the Greek economy will improve by any reasonable margin. And then Germany will blame it on not having open markets or some such silliness. These are problems no doubt, but in and of themselves are not the core of the problem. I'm beginning to think maybe Germany made the terms so onerous so that Greece could only but fail. And then they can have us removed ... with moral authority on their behalf. Wouldn't that be ironic. Reforms, reforms, reforms. I'm afraid in this case, reforms of any kind won't help Greece get out of the hole. Only growth can do that, but that was flatly rejected by the EU when it was presented to them as an alternative by Varoufakis. I wonder why ?? Either they didn't want it work, or they don't understand macro economics. Either way, this is not an entity I want running Greece. Unfortunately, it's going to take more years of pain for the average greek citizen to realise the EU isn't the saviour they all thought it would be.
  12. I wouldn't exactly Spain is doing well. Sure they don't have 26% unemployment, it's now only at 22%. I guess the EU and ECB know what they are doing. If this keeps up, the US and China will have to take note, pay homage and imitate ... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/26/bank-of-spain-economic-recovery-accelerating
  13. It's just a way of thinking that developed as a result of the civil war. it's not ideal, but I don't find it surprising. How else could it be ? But, I think the left ideology ruining Greece is just a scape goat. If that was the case, KKE would get a much larger share of the vote. As it is, they never get more than 5% give or take. To me, it's more a case of the Greek people became complacent and failed to keep up with the new way of doing things post 1990, give or take. The world has changed a lot since then and we have had to adapt with jobs being off-shored, privatisations, domestic manufacturing become less and less relevant etc. We don't like it, but we've managed for the most part to adapt, while whinging along the way. The new normal is job insecurity unfortunately. How does the education system in Greece perpetuate this way of thought ? Wanting to exit the EZ doesn't mean become buddies with Russia. I could not think of a worse ally. Having said that, if we can export to them, or they want to invest in Greece, by all means do it. What is up with all the closed professions in Greece ? I read somewhere there are 240 of them ? Kind of ridiculous. Certain professions (think medical) should be closed and have higher standards. You don't want a cost-cutting race to the bottom when it comes to health-care. But 240! Nice one. Sunday trading generally only benefits large malls. Small suburban shops are for the most part closed on Sundays, as they don't get the foot traffic to justify opening on a Sunday. Greece is for the most part the land of small suburban shops, so it'll be interesting to see how this one plays out. What is up with Elliniko ? You'd think it was a perfect site for development. Is there something wrong with the site ? Both PASOK and ND have had chances to develop it. Why hasn't anything been done ? And we're still waiting on a Land Register ...
  14. Hypocrisy. I can guarantee you if and when the day comes that Germany's economy enters recession, they will not apply the same "methods" to their own economy as they did to Greece. jvc, I get what you are saying about Greece paying its debt, but there are times when debts just aren't payed back in full. And this is a text book case of that. Just because an agreement has been made (think Versailles), doesn't make it just or sustainable. I'm just waiting for the laughable hype that will come out in maybe 6 or 12 months from now when the media will report "Greek economy grows by 1.2%" or something like that. It's not so hard to grow by 1.2% when you're GDP has fallen by 30%. What people aren't getting is how bad the technocrats at the EU are at their job. They have little understanding of macro-economics and don't really care when this is pointed out. Just think ... how badly has Greece been run in the last 40 years or so ? Really bad yeah! Little understanding of how to create a modern economy. Greatly reliant on tourism. Little to no serious export industry. Heavily reliant on imports. Bureaucracy laughable. Regulation laughable. Taxation laughable. And yet I tell you compared to the EU technocrats, the people that ran Greece were competent. As bad as Greece has been, they never managed to destroy the economy to depression levels in such a short time. There is a big misconception that this is all of Greece's fault. Definitely up until 2008 it was. But since then, the Troika's remedies have managed to put Greece into an economic spiral and it's still going. I await to see where it will finish. There seem to be a lot of posters on this forum that have faith in EU technocrats fixing Greece's economy. I am not one of them. I don't think they know how to fix it.
  15. Facundo is a good squad player and he would be missed. I hope they can work it out. Olympiakos ? Surely that is just the media.
  16. ECB going to turn the tap back on. Tsipras and Co. doing what they are told. The EU is a beautiful thing.
  17. I don't believe the 50 billion is collateral. I think the idea is to sell it off slowly and in theory it's not meant to be fire sale prices. Also, the full 50 billion is not meant to be used for debt repayment but rather a portion of it will be used to help the economy grow. At least, that's my understanding of it. As to how it all pans out, time will tell.
  18. That's actually quite a nice 11. The back 3, pfft, they scare the s%$#! out of me, but how can I not be scared of our defense after the last 6 months. From Kace onwards, it's quite a nice selection. Kace, Pelkas, Charisis and Mistakidis. Would Tudor play so many youngsters together in such a critical game ? Having said that, Kace isn't a youngster. He's a full senior player now.
  19. I never cease to be surprised. I would have bet 100 dollars it would have been the other way around.
  20. I agree about getting good players. Not so sure about getting them fast. We have to be realistic and accept the fact we probably can't get "top shelf" players. I'd rather we sign less players but of a higher quality, which is the approach Arnesen seems to be using. Either that or all his targets are selecting other clubs over ours. ;) Either way, this squad should be good enough to make it the group stage, and if they don't make it, well that indicates what level we're at now, and how much rebuilding needs to be done. The problem with us signing "high quality" players is that they usually don't want to come to PAOK. I'm guessing Arnesen is waiting for the transfer window to get closer at which point players will decide that PAOK's offer is the best they have, where as now, they are happy in general to wait and see if a better offer comes their way. What this means is that Arnesen is rolling the dice that the current squad is good enough to make the group stage. Risky I suppose, and I could be completely wrong. I'm just speculating. Regardless, I'm going to blaspheme now and say it. I'd rather we don't make the group stage if that means we don't sign players just for the sake of it. And if we can't make it with the current squad then they shouldn't be there. They shouldn't require "metagrafes" to get to the group stage. I find myself in the unusual situation of actually having faith in Arnesen with Tudor. Arnesen with his ice cold viking blood just make me feel calm ;) And I think Tudor has what it takes to make us a better team. I hope the rest of the PAOK fans have patience also.
  21. How did Greece survive before when they had the dpx ? Or was I dreaming. As it is, Greece is now a vassal state ... without a shot being fired, or a soldier landing on our land. Complete and utter surrender. I await with bated breath for conditions to improve now after this 3rd bail out. Let's see how it turns out.
  22. It is only for the common good that I reply or comment to your posts. But I have done it enough, and it may be the case that other posters have had enough as well and roll their eyes at this silly back and forth. The rest of your post, again, what have you been smoking ? I have a target now ... indeed *rolls eyes*. I will take your advice ... I think it's time we moved on.
  23. Agreed, it's not the formation. If anything this formation strengthens the spine by having 3 in the back and 3 in the middle, at the expense of the flanks.
  24. Enough of this Russia talk. Back on topic. I'm not surprised that there are anarchist actions now and to come. After all, this is Greece we're talking about. The land where they can't even get hooliganism in stadiums under control, when all it would take is some video surveillance and actual meaningful prosecutions. Having said that, Tsipras should not have agreed to the terms of the EU. And the reason is, it's not the platform he got voted in on. I'm not arguing about whether he did or didn't have a choice, that is a discussion for another time. What I am saying is he said if he got voted in, that he would "end" the austerity. Then, he holds a referendum. And the people vote Oxi. At this point, he has no option but to go through with the plan. He has to, or so you'd think. However he comes out of the meeting with the EU having effectively ceded all ground. Politically, this was a bad move, as well as ethically. He would have been better off walking calmly out of the meeting saying "I can't agree to these terms, and the EU won't negotiate, therefore I am resigning". At least this way he could have argued he didn't lie or screw the people. Hand over government to whoever wants it, but don't allow your signature to be the one that appears on the 3rd bailout. The EU would look bad since they effectively broke an elected government by using the ECB to cut liquidity, and Tsipras doesn't look like a hypocrite and an amateur. Which is how he looks now ... I don't know. Maybe I'm reading it all wrong but if he truly felt the deal was awful then he should not have signed. PASOK suffered badly in the previous election. Will the same happen to Syriza in the next ? I imagine their one shot in government is over. I can see PASOK picking up a few votes also. Not enough to get back into power but more than the election just past for sure. I wonder how XA would go if they stopped the violent racist stuff and instead ran on a platform of "end the austerity or Grexit". As for Tsipras, he should enjoy this time. It will be his last. And he should probably start siphoning money to a Swiss bank account while he can.
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