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Hi boys, another lifelong sufferer joining the ranks. Anyway looks like the first time in a long time we have a settled squad before the start of the season. The good thing is we have genuine replacements for each position on the pitch. I expect to see the following lineup (4-2-3-1) after a couple of weeks of preparation... Brkic Matos:Crespo:Varela:Leovac Canas:Shakov Djalma:Biesewar:Rodrigues Klaus With direct replacements... Glykos Kitsiou:Malezas:Hatzisaias:Tzavellas Cimirot:Kace Jairo:Pelkas:Facundo Koulouris Hopefully this means we don't see the likes of Tzioli too often this season.

GOAL in the 91st -edit- sounds like it was Tziolis. Now he'll be with us for years more.

....I'm sure Matt Scott is just a fake name for that Greek PAO fan who has an agenda against the altar boy Marinakis....

Apart from your last line, you are right. Personally CL success is not something that the smaller teams can attain purely by throwing money at players. The wealth gap is too big to bridge anyway. I would focus on stability, get a highly capable coach with an eye for talent to commit for 3 years or more to building a solid squad of players who can come together to create a whole that is better than the individual parts. This is just a pipe dream though, 1 or two good CL games with us and most players are packing their bags for greener pastures. In that year we went our furthest 98-99 I think, it was mostly domestic players with a couple Serbs and perhaps Ofori-Quaye, that was a team, today its a bunch of mercenaries, and I don't blame them, its the nature of the beast.

And, I say, the Brexit vote was going to win by 8 points but Obama made it much closer than that!. Who's right, Farage or I?.... :cw: In my estimate what Obama said didn't make the slightest difference. Why would it? It's a European matter. In some sense the US could argue against a united Europe....

Does the money from the transfer belong to Papathanasakis or the club ? If it belongs to the club, and it can't be accounted for, then it's missing or stolen. I don't understand why this is so difficult.

Exactly. Mak was not going to stay at PAOK considering we were offering only 800K salary, while Zenit is giving him 1.5 mil plus bonuses. I think Mak's mind was made up when he got the red card and the 5 game ban for the penalty against Olympiakos that was never called. PAOK got a pretty good deal for Mak. We paid 300K to get him, and will pocket 3.5 mil with his sale. Not a bad investment.

Yes yes, I get what Sheriff is saying also. But, what can we seriously expect from a team that hasn't kept a manager for longer than 8 months in the last 4 seasons ? Note that our fans don't help either. As for expecting players that are leaders or can make the difference, how can a team like PAOK attract such players ? The answer is they can't easily. A player that is that easy to spot, will have been poached by a better club in a better league long before a team like PAOK can get them. All PAOK can do is to try and acquire players that show glimmers of something, and hope that given the chance they will reach some sort of hypothetical potential. Sometimes it will works e.g. Lucas, Mak, sometimes it won't. PAOK doesn't currently have the mentality as a club or the funds to be able to just "make" a team that can regularly and consistently put teams like Ajax way. There are a core of players currently in the team that are semi-solid players like Tzavellas, Leovac, Charisis, Cimirot, Kace, Pelkas, Mystakidis, Rodrigues, Pereyra that are all decent players on their day. The hard part is having them all fit and in form at the same time. I am hoping that some of the new transfers like Matos, Shakhov, Canas, Biseswar, Djalma will be another small step up in "kwality" as Tudor used to say. Having said all that, I've always thought that the most logical expectation one should have for their team, is that it is better and improving from one season to the next. With that in mind I am quietly optimistic about this seasons transfers. Will PAOK beat Ajax ? I don't know. But I will be disappointed if the team this season is not better than last season. And yes, Mak will be sorely missed.

I want to have a minimum of 15000 season tickets per year with it going up to 20k and 25k as a record. 15k a year must be a minimum for a club of our fan base