The club has not invested wisely, and its strategy has been short sighted. In summary, the club has tried to "buy" success "on the cheap". In the first season, we brought in over the hill greek internationals and thought one Stoch on loan would be enough. Same again in the second season. Third season was better in my opinion, as we went for a fresh approach and brought in players like Mak and Pereyra and actually had the beginnings of a good squad. Not enough depth though. This season we spend BIG ... queue irony. Two transfers over 1 million euros. Now that's a first for PAOK (and chicken feed for Olympiakos). Leovac and Cimirot are the only players in the history of PAOK that cost more than 1 million euros. So we spent ~6 million on transfers this season but you also need to subtract the money we got for Noboa and Lucas. In total, we spent around ~3 million euros. 3 million! Wow, hey big spender, spend a little time with me ....
If spending 3 million on transfers and getting a young manager is all it takes to win a title, then every team would be doing it. If the club had spent 20 or 30 million then I'd say fair enough, now you're trying to compete with Olympiakos, but let's be serious now, we're not on the same level and have no place even thinking about anything other than coming second at best, for the foreseeable future. The other option if you don't want to spend big (which I fully understand is a big risk), is to invest in youth or players from lower leagues and hope that you can do it that way. That's been the approach this season, and for the most part I've been happy with it. Lots of young players, and let's be fair, not all will work out. It's just the way it is. But, if you can manage to keep this core of players like Kitsiou, Chatzisais (I can never spell this kids name), Charisis, Cimirot, Pelkas, Mystakidis can you imagine what they'll be like in 3 years from now when they've been playing together for 2 or 3 seasons ? All of sudden, maybe then you have a core that you can build on.
But no, we want results now! And we want it cheap! And if we don't get it (someone mentioned we have some of the best fans in the country .. really ?) we'll trash your cars and threaten you. We want youth but we want results! Sorry, can't be done. It's either the old formula of over the hill players past their best trying but not so hard so they can prolong their career. They'll give it all in the derbies (and make the fans oh so happy) and then their level drops. Or it's go with youth, development and player "discovery" from lower leagues.
As for managers, at PAOK we are experts at crucifying them. It makes feel ... oh so good ... and I mean, if you look at the past, it's been such a successful strategy.