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Fixtures are announced July 15. I'll be off to Europe 15 days later and in Thessaloniki near the end of August for my first PAOK game, very excited!

I always got a kick out of these types of threads on the old site so I figured I'd start one up now as training camp will kick off in about a week. With PAO's summer transfers basically done (minus the CB of course), what do you guys expect the starting 11 to look like? What would you want the starting 11 to look like? Your thoughts below. Here's what I expect to see when the dust settles and we start our CL/Europa qualifiers (assuming everyone is healthy): -------------------Steele---------------- --Wemmer---Tavlaridis---(TBD)---Nano--- -------------------Essien------------------ -------Zeca------------------Prajnic------- -------------------Ninis------------------ ---------Karelis---------------------- ----------------------Berg--------------- I think Prajnic gets the nod early on in games due to familiarty reasons. I'm one of those that believes Robin Lod will be a huge get for this team and at some point will take over that midfield spot. Based off what I've read, he's a left footed box to box type who seems hungry and eager to make the next jump in his career. For whatever reason, I got a good feeling about that guy and his situation reminds me of Zeca slightly (not a big name signing, small team/market, age, etc) who turned out to be one of the best signings this team has made in ages (Thanks Jesualdo!). Also, that TBD guy I heard is a total stud. PAIKTARAS! What do you guys think?

Alafouzo and Melissanidi are sewing/maintaining pressure on EPO.... They won't go away easy..

we also need to realise that we can't be governed by a bunch of coffee sipping Che Guevara inspired pseudo politicians...these guys are a laughing stock

Reforms are meaningless when you can't issue your own currency and have it float at a value that reflects the strength of your economy. Likewise with the setting of interest rates. The basic structure of the EU is a straight jacket. Spain, Ireland and to a lesser extent Italy are "reforming" and have been for several years. How long before their economies are "fixed" ? Start counting because it's going to take a long time. The EU is not concerned that Spain has 20+% unemployment. They are more than happy with the "growth" of this "tiger" in the last 12 months.

In November of 2012 Greece beat Ireland 1-0 in a friendly with a relatively young side, at the time i thought the future's bright most of these players play in top leagues and we were flying high in qualifying, how have we slipped so much in such a short time? bad management me thinks. anyway this was the line up that night. Karnezis - Torosidis Papastathopoulos Papadopoulos Stafylidis - Ninis Tachtsidis Tziolis Holebas - Samaras Mitroglou A very good 11, Ninis has regressed and Samaris would replace Tziolis nowadays but at the time i thought we'd be a force for years to come.

So the banks did Greece a favour did they? which banks in particular, was it goldman who cooked the books took consultancy fees and ran off betting on Greece to fail? If the banks knew it was 'unsustainable' the super high standard of living the bloated public sector etc etc why did they lend, was it for the love of Greece was it to help Greek people or was it to collect obscene amounts of interest from the Greek state safe in the knowledge that if Greece defaulted they'd be bailed out with more loans and more interest to service existing debt, followed by privatisation and the transfer of Greek assets to creditors. I like your language Gyros, anyone who questions the conduct of the banks is an 'uneducated leftist' who's spreading 'misinformation' Are the banks blameless? their solution to the Greek debt is.... more debt, because they know they can't lose, no one forced these private banks to buy Greek bonds, and you blame the government(which wasn't SYRIZA) on blowing it on 'bloated public sector' 'early generous retirements' and general people not paying tax(in the UK only the super rich/corporations avoid paying tax but no one minds) yet you neglect to mention interest payments, i'm not saying the government was blameless but neither are the banks, seems people get touchy when you mention the conduct of the banks, banding about statements like super-fustanella narrative. If you ran a successful small business in Greece and saw most of the states money going to pay foreign creditors would you be doing your best to pay as little tax as possible ? be honest. like the big boys do in the UK, pfizer google starbuck amazon npower vodafone to name a few.

It is much easier to be pro-EU than pro-EZ. There used to be a lot more pro-EZ people before the economic crisis across Europe, but they've mostly shut up after the financial collapse. Now all the nations that didn't join the EZ like UK are thanking their luck that they didn't. I can see why loads of people are in favour of the concept of a united Europe/EU, but in practice the EU is far from perfect and very unaccountable.

Like the sell off in 2013 of 28 public buildings to foreign companies at a knock down price which the Greek state is now renting back at an extortionate cost. nice one MR Forbes. Do you prefer the EUs plan for growth? how do you grow an economy by cutting everything, when people have less they spend less which has a knock on effect in private business. the problem isn't capitalism but the banking racket, if you call bailing out banks and asking the people to pay 'normal' then we have a different idea as to what is normal, the reason the protestors came out is that they have savings which they don't want to see devalued by leaving the euro, a little self interest, even if it means the country continues to be run to the ground. remember opposing the banks does not mean opposing capitalism, but we don't have capitalism if state funds are used to bail out failed private businesses(banks). socialising debts, privatising profits. growth can only come by leaving this pathetic corrupt unaudited union. http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2012/02/21/greek-bailout-deal-a-farce-to-benefit-banks-at-the-expense-of-greece/ since the above article was written debt to GDP in Greece has risen to 174% so of 252bn received by Greece 90% goes straight out the country to prop up foreign banks, yet posters on here want to blame the greek 'mentality' or SYRIZA or the unions or 10 year degrees for all of greece's woes and neglect to look at the real culprits, its a shame you have greek people who are apologists for the very banks that destroyed them. I've heard it said on here the government doesn't owe people a living which is true but by the same token the people don't owe foreign banks a living. 10% of bailout money stayed in Greece and for that they've squeezed the people until the pips squeaked. We've seen the state of the hospitals and people suffering yet some people want more of the same, thankfully its only a small number of Greeks who are pro EU. you cannot pay debts(especially with obscene interest added on) unless you create wealth and you cannot create wealth by cutting everything, besides its obvious its unpayable.

I think they changed that rule. I know the electoral system in Greece is not perfect, but I think it is much better than what system we've got here in the UK. Syriza only got like 36% of the total vote, but then they got bonus seats for being the largest party. I personally don't like the idea of bonus seats, but its only to help make a strong government. Even with those bonus seats we should remember that Syriza could not form a majority. So more that 36% voted for the government if you add Syriza and Ind Greek's votes together. Anyway my view is that Tsipras should not go down the same road as Samaras and Papandreou have before. Yeah I'm hoping for an exit, but I'm so sceptical of the EU on the whole that I'd want an exit regardless of the situation. These debates have become more unpredictable recently, but my hunch is still that Tsipras will end up buckling to the EU.