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SL–R3: Apollon Smyrnis - PAOK (11 Sep 17, 19:30 EEST)


Blackhawk

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Too hard to judge Lucescu just yet.  Remember, Ivic started off slow as well.  The two away games so far in the GSL are par for the course.  The players need to do their job also and put the ball in the net.  It's not like we didn't have the run of the play and didn't have enough opportunities to score.  Sure we could be playing better but there's enough quality/chances there to finish off games.

The HUGE fail was definitely EL but again, how much was Lucescu's fault and how much was the players and the administration ?  I am not sold on Lucescu but it's too hard to judge him just yet.  If people think any manager can come in and just turn this team around (remember how poor we were in the play-offs), they are dreaming.  Let's see what the next month or two brings ... if he lasts the long ha ha.

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@Bananas I agree it's too soon to judge a new coach, just as it was probably too soon to sack our first manager this season. Now I'm sure someone will come at me with some articles written saying the pre-season training was poor and he had to go blah blah blah. The same excuses that seem to rear their head every time someone new is in charge and for one reason or another is disliked. Let me say, I wasn't happy with the signing of Stanojevic, but PAOK made the decision so you have to stick with him and give him a chance, not sack him because he lost a friendly and send our season into a spin. 

The difference with Ivic and Lucescu, is that Ivic was untried we didn't know what he was capable of. Lucescu has shown the way he gets results is packing the midfield and frustrating the opposition. That doesn't fly at paok, you need to be able to beat teams like xanthi and apollon who do those very things to us. Is he capable of playing football and implementing tactics that will see us have some success? Time will tell, but my contention is we have been doomed to fail this season, by poor off-filed management (in a footballing sense) 

As I said earlier, I hope i'm proven wrong and we turn it around, lord knows we have bought in the quality to do so, but with off-field instability it makes it that much harder. 

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Do you think maybe that whoever hired him should have asked him about his pre-season program? Ans done their due diligence on his regime? Or do you think we just should have steered clear of hiring someone who hadn't coached a notable european team since 2012 and his last job was in the Chinese second division? I'm not saying he didn't have to go, if players were indeed unfit, then there was a lack of professionalism either from the coach/staff or the players.  Poor off-field decision to hire him in the first place. 

It's not just this example that's got me worked up, I've watched the same thing happen over and over again. We saw last season when a coach was allowed to see out the season and was backed what we can do. Yes the season ended poorly but last season was our best in years. It's like how many times can you burn your hand and keep touching the iron? 

A step in the right direction was not accepting Michel resignation. They've gone with Lucescu now? fine again im not thrilled with it, but stick with him. There shouldn't even be a discussion on his future until the end of this season. But we all know a couple more bad results and he'll be on his way too. It's just not the way forward, and its frustrating to watch the club make the SAME mistakes over and over again

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I was in Rizoupoli, the only good thing was our fans, i was surprised to see more than 1.500. El Khaddouri did nothing great, he was kind of not courageous, Pelkas sucks, Campos was bad. Mak should have played. Prijo lost most of our chances. disappointing performance by our team in general. The players wanted to give us an applause at the end for being there, we whistled them "ouuuuu" and they left. Lucescu wake the team up or go away !

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The biggest mistake was that we did not do enough to keep Ivic. He should have never left. After that the next mistake was Savvidis  listening to fans opinions about Lucescu who did not want him at PAOK. Instead of signing him when Ivic quit, they got Stanojevic. Aftre that disaster, Lucescu came to PAOK anyway. Valuable time was lost. The team pre-season training was a complete disaster. That is something we will have to pay for the entire season. 

At this point any talk of a new coach coming in is like throwing in the towel for this season. Lucescu needs to be given time to turn this thing around. We are only two points behind, with a favorable schedule before we play Olympiakos. I don't what we can accomplish by bringing in a new coach. it's not like we will bring some brand name coach. it will probably be Pablo garcia from the U20 team.

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On 9/10/2017 at 11:39 PM, Blackhawk said:

Looks like you got lucky. A friend of mine from Czech Republic was in Miami last week. She was supposed to leave back for Prague today, but on Friday they evacuated her to Atlanta and she got a flight to Amsterdam yesterday. She made it to Prague this morning. 

This evacuation thing was complete bs... Most of the UM students here left either to north Florida, or to Atlanta, or elsewhere. I was one of the very few who stayed and everyone was saying Yianni you jeopardize your safety blah blah blah... I said, guys relax, I survived elimination by Ostersund, there is no way a small hurricane who passes 50-60 miles west of Miami is going to make me leave... Hahaha, I have the sense they already thought I was crazy, now it's for sure.

OK, obviously I didn't watch the game as power just came back. Almost two and a half days without electricity in Miami SUCKS. Anyway, the moment I saw Pelkas as a starter, I knew there is no way we are winning this match. Hahaha. The more this player plays, the more I have an issue with him. Come on you Lucescu... I don't blame him for anything, but some decisions -like substituting Biseswar against the Swedish village- don't make sense to me AT ALL. And I am worried because he is supposed to know the team.

Anyway, the team tied against Levadeiakos and Apollon. To me, we don't deserve even to be called title challengers. Of course Olympiakos is having a hard time, but we are quite horrible so far. Savvidis keeps talking about the championship and the team cannot play football's basics. Anyway, don't shoot the coach, don't shoot the players who are tooooooo many and issues will arise for sure. For anything good and bad is happening the only one to blame is Savvidis.

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