georgelaz

the past 3 going on 4 years asteras finished 5th, ,4th, 3rd and are sitting on 4th again this year. this is a long enough time frame to take them seriously. I think Giannou is proving a point right now. I don't know much about Vellios beyond his stats, which don't impress me. Unless I'm missing something?

Strikers for me are still 1. Mitroglou 2. Klaus 3. Giannou Karelis is a winger/second striker Kone can be a good second striker but he doesn't play there regularly so kinda a waste of a starting spot. it's an option though I'm super confident that if our midfield is the midfield in the hungary 4-3 or something similar like with Ninis/Mantalos, Fortounis, Pelkas, Tachtsidis, Samaris Klaus will score with good service we could also play with two strikers. Mitroglou being strong on the left and Klaus/Giannou strong on the right since none of our midfield is that good at scoring IMO, except Karelis who's borderline LW/CF

Personally, I think Ninis is our best CAM when he's in form. Right now, it's Fortounis. Mantalos has gotta be in the squad regardless, and Pelkas.

yeah before Maicon came into the picture Torosidis I think had a more positive reaction from fans. it's a big contrast bias. toro has a couple more years though, maicon is in the twilight years of his career.

The lineup is a natural progression. Although I can see the rationale for wanting Vyntra, Tziolis, Moras to be progressed faster. I don't mind them, as long as they aren't starters. They'd only start if there's an injury. Giannou got the call up. He's in great form, good height and we really need a 3rd striker. Samaras needs to get his s%$#! together because he's one of our best strikers. Go to Italy for a pay cut dude. This euro campaign should be Samaras's last one as a major figure for us. If Holebas wasn't on the Greek squad, I'd say Tzavellas is our next best LB. He has better free kicks than Holebas, more passionate about the NT, and slightly better defensive skills. He also is very important to a very solid PAOK over the past few years. I feel way more confident with Tzavellas at the back then Stafylidis.

Rankings are a bit funny. Since France automatically qualifies for World Cup, it's kinda hard for them to gain additional points because they play few competitive matches.

with Kace & Berbatov I think Paok would have at least got a draw.

Olympiakos will need probably need to get a point. Arsenal will rally otherwise

one of my good friends says since the EPL has a lot of really strong opposition it weakens the sides for champions league, whereas germany and la liga the top teams are a big cut above anyways Olympiakos was very deserving. could've easily been 4-1 for oly dinamo is a good team, we aren't gunna make them look like levadiakos lol and i'm panathinaikos but in europe i'm every greek team, so I say we lol

Personally, I'm a fan of Mitroglou. I loved his punk ass attitude when he scores. I don't think he has ever hit the form since 2013-2014 again, even at Benfica right now, he's kinda cooled down again but we'll see how the season pans out. I also don't think that he was ever as bad as people were saying he was when he was out of form either. They just weren't playing him at all at fulham, he was scoring lots of goals on the return loan to Olympiakos, it just seemed bad because he was twice as productive in 2013-2014.

No one said Mitroglou is as good as Dzeko. Dzeko is better hands down. But Mitroglou is solid. It's debatable whether Greece or Bosnia is better. I side towards Greece, not even being biased.

they have 2 great players. plus 6 good players. We have 2 great players in Manolas & Sokratis plus 9 good players. Manolas plays with Dzeko and Pjanic, so he can probably read their patterns like a book. On paper, we're the better team, we have more depth. It's a team sport. Belgium is better than us on paper though, but they don't scare me. If the Americans can hold them off into extra time, we can do even better. We've only lost to Bosnia once. We've beaten them 4 times. We've beaten Cyprus 17 times and they've beaten us 3. We've beaten Belgium 3 times and they've beaten us 2. We've beaten Estonia once and they've never beaten us. History is on our side. Let's make the historic dent bigger. historically, this is one of the best groups Greece could have ever landed. Even better than the Euro campaign!

this game will make or break the campaign because I don't think Arsenal is gunna drop anymore points the momentum is with Olympiakos to win it.

yeah I was thinking. We should definitely keep Holebas and Torosidis as fullbacks for this campaign but we HAVE to have wingers for the attacking half of the pitch. we can't expect them to run up and down the field for 90 minutes much longer. Holebas plays like he's 25 somehow though, probably because of his late start? Less atrophy I suppose.

i'm with ellas. with the weaker sides, we gotta play super aggressively but maintain a firm defense. with belgium and possibly bosnia. we got to shut them down defensively and make every break, chance count.

he get's a lot of yellow cards. picked up one in 68 in the 4-0 win against tondela. aggression can be good though if he doesn't accumulate reds.

I didn't mind Katsouranis at all. If we didn't botch the Euro campaign I would be down for him to play 30-60 minutes a game as a starter or super-sub. I think his handling during the campaign was pretty disrespectful since he was almost as important to us as Karagounis IMO. Karagounis being a bit more important but still HUGE for us. A CDM has a longer shelf life than a RB like Seitaridis. Seitaridis in his prime was stellar, nevertheless. We probably should have groomed him to be a CB in a more disciplined way. Like Ramos or Lahm as CDM (he'd be a CB if he was bigger/stronger)

your lineup might actually work great panatha bit dicey to leave out Manolas & Samaris two of our best players hands down. admittedly they have been s%$#! for the ethniki

lol this isn't our best squad but in terms of raw speed would be fun to see once basically our fastest players for each position Diamantakos Klaus Klonaridis Pelkas Fetfa Maniatis Holebas Manolas Sokratis Marinos Karnezis

fortounis should start over ninis if anything. ninis vs. pelkas is more debatable but even still i'm slightly for pelkas ninis as a sub for sure though. I don't get the Siovas? CB pecking order 1. Sokratis 2. Manolas 3. Kpaps 4. Siovas IMO

No way. Ethniki should have only one venue and the best venue. England = Wembely. It should be synonymous with the ethniki. Right now it seems to be karaiskakis. It's not gunna feel like home with a constant switch up

I would love to see Mitroglou blast a goal or two against the Turks, but I'm probably dreaming.

Turkey is really in form. So I would love to beat them convincingly.

I was hoping he would be our new Gilberto Silva... anyone know whatsup with him? Will he play a game? Cisse played amazing for us and earned back a call up for France with his form. This was AFTER two broken legs!

The Sweden game Ottos plan was basically to nullify Ibra via big tall centre backs - hence 3 centrebacks (including Antzas at 6'5) by nullifying Ibra, and being proficient in set plays, pop a goal of a corner or free kick via karagounis. it wasn't our night though