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Great move by Savvidis to hire Arnesen as Technical Director. He has all the qualifications a team would want in a TD. The big question is if he will be allowed to do the work he knows. He needs to be given time to build the team. Just hope that he will not be chased away like some other big names (Stephens). The chance of him becoming a tourist like Stephens or Boloni is quite possible. His first move is to find a new coach and than good players to start building the team. let's hope this is the start of better things to come.

Another team double this season. The men's handball team defeated Diomidis Argos 43:40 in double overtime and penalty shootout to claim the Greek championship to go along with the Greek Cup.

He sounds like a team player, but I hope he doesn't take too many pointers (at least on the sports side) from ... Savvidis, etc. If he is allowed to do his job (which Blackhawk alluded to in the thread he made for our new TD) then things will be better, but I feel like that's a big if. I think he is also in for massive culture shock. Either this or he will be the catalyst that transforms our club's business culture from the inside out with a little Nordic efficiency. I think the first one is more likely but I am hoping for the second one. I do not care for instant results (which I think Savvidis has been foolishly pursuing at times) but can we at least get our s%$#! together and not look like amateur hour?

First interview with Arnesen. -edit- One note about the interview, he says that he feels he's coming in a little late in the process of preparing for this transfer window. By the standards of our club, he's about 4 months early, so this might be a good sign.

This is true. Hopefully our new TD will start to right the ship. That and out buddy Jackie-boy. Garcia and Lino returning as anything other than scouts, makes me nervous.

great win ,love winning in toumba,I have to say ninis movement with the ball and without,his decision making and the way he played between the lines was sublime number 10 play in the first half. mavrias out wide was excellent ,we really need him ,we need good wingers ,to open up tight defences. koutroubis again was good,what is good about him in that position is he plays more attacking through balls rather than just going wide like lagos tends to do,plus he also has the right body for that position ,good in the air and a decent defender. sort of makes you think what could have been ,if we hadn't wasted so much time and energy , giving playing time,to pranjic,bouiy,bajrami,petric( by the way how have we managed to score goals without him during the play offs? ),mendez and kotsolis. can we please focus on keeping karelis and mavrias.

I didn't know if I should put this in this thread or the transfers thread, but I thought as it encompasses more than just transfer policy it should go in here. Here in Australia, despite being quite an insanely dedicated nation of sports consumers we only have to my knowledge one sports radio station and as such it differs a bit from what you get in Greece and the US, it regularly gets quite serious about issues like team building, general men's health and the science and psychology behind sport. Late last year there was an extensive interview with a former Wallaby [Australian rugby representative] who had undertaken a 2 year research study into team building. By team building I don't mean bonding between team mates and whether or not they are going to punch on in the changing rooms after a game but the composition of your playing staff and list management. Specifically what they found was that the best results were derived by those teams who made minimal changes to their playing staff at any one time. One of the examples they cited was the NFL where team lists are blown up and turned over at a huge rate and that not surprisingly the number of playoff teams can change from one season to the next by up to 50%, yet the teams who keep as much of their core intact from season to season [New England, Seattle, Denver] remain perennial playoff teams while others who go about hoovering up boatloads of free agents and look great on paper wallow on the periphery. The other examples they used were Manchester United under Sir Alex and the current Barcelona setup which would only buy one or two players per season but ones that were a direct and obvious upgrade on what they had or replacing a retiree. That's why I personally think blowing up the team and filling it with a bunch of mercenaries will lead to disaster. Obviously we aren't going to get a series of superstars in during one transfer window, but what we can do is buy 3 decent players this summer who are demonstrably better than what we have to be supplemented by the guys already there. I'm thinking a left back, a defensive midfielder and a left winger as first priority. Eventually inside 3 transfer windows you would have overhauled almost your entire starting XI with the aim being that our current first XI becomes our second XI unless they lift their game to outperform the new blood. This however would only work if we could hire a manager/coach that we stick with. It's no surprise that our most consistent era was under Santos because he was given time and the players new that he wans't going anywhere in a hurry. Apologies for the long post.

PAOK's over drive button doesn't work. It's been malfunctioning since 1985. It briefly (for some unknown reason) splutters briefly to life whenever we play Olympiakos and then just dims out again.

I love Lino. The guy is a legend. But if we sign him, I'm going to boycott the team for a year.

the parallels between PAOK and Newcastle are uncanny. President who has cleared the debt........ check Failure to make any signings during the summer transfer period or even longer......... check Panic scattergun buying during the winter transfer period....... check The only difference is that most of the other superleague clubs are even more poorly managed and we get away with it, it's toughter in the premier league and Newcastle were at serious risk. Between PAOK, Newcastle and Collingwood it's been a s%$#! year to watch football.

It's disgusting with these "international organizations" who have been corrupt to the bone. Same with the Olympic Committee, etc. I'm happy that the US feds are doing something about it. Blatter, seems really sleazy to me, but the corruption is so deep that he'll be re-elected this Friday. I hope that UEFA takes a stand. The next World Cup was bought with bribes by a oil-rich country that has no history of football nor an infrastructure. UEFA members don't like that they have to make major changes in their leagues to field national teams to participate. I'm old enough to remember the talk about corruption and the bribes needed to secure the 1996 Olympic games, which Greece lost to Atlanta. All these big organizations are not really accountable to anyone. They're international mafia organizations. I hope they clean FIFA, who, by the way, made $1 billion while Brazil lost money after hosting the world cup last year.

Good move. He knows a lot of players and more important: their managers. Might bring us some decent signings.

I know I am on the minority in this but I really don't think it's smart to sign Van der Vaart for 4 million euros unless Nike and Melissanidis personally are paying for it because if it comes from the club there will not be a lot of money left for us to fill other big needs. And also because we don't have huge need in that position... If it was at striker for Drogba id be all for it, but when we just needed someone to fill in until Mantalos comes back and depth then I don't see the need to drop that much $$$. I want us to find 4-5 players that are relatively unknown but are very good players, like Johanson was for us. Or maybe a few younger players that will come here and tear it up like Blanco and Scocco did when they first came. I don't care if they Chinese, Brazilian, Greek, or come from the planet Mars, I just want good players that are here to play well and not for a vacation. We need a LB, Striker, 2 wingers, dekari, and CB if we want to be serious about a title. Anyways, Scocco rumors are starting up again. Based off of current form, and his poor relations with Newell's right now we might be able to get him back cheaper than he would have cost a year ago. I think Melissanidis will give us 2-3 "bam" signings but based off of price I just don't see Van der Vaart being one of them, Scocco and 2 more players of equal or better quality are more likely. It is important to note that Melissanidis is not the president, and has no shares of the team. He is just a very well known "fan" that gives the team cash "gifts" and has his opinions on things, he is not anywhere on paper affiliated with the club lol.

He has a substantial CV, 6 years in Abramovich's Chelsea, Spurs before that. Hope that he can fish out some good players as well