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9 defenders? Is Vyntra really necessary? No natural attacking wingers? Just Aravidis Karelis Kone and Karelis who are not natural wingers and get lost when they aren't playing in the middle? Mantalos, the kid is quality, he's got some amazing technical ability, but he's played a full 90 minutes once this year and has had 2 substitute appearances, sure he was solid in all 3 games but I don't think he should be called up already so soon after injury. Hopefully Samaris' Mitroglous and Fortounis' solid club form can carry over to the national team, we need all 3 to get their heads out of their asses when they play with the ethniki. Let's get a win! I'd start --------------------------/Karnezis Torosidis -------Sokratis-----Manolas ------------Holebas -------------Samaris ---Kyriakos ---Tachtsidis------------ ----------------------------Fortounis----------------------------- ----------------------Karelis---------Mitroglou------------------ We have no natural wingers, so we might as well stack the midfield with 4 players. K Pap sitting in front of the 4 man defense has been used before in the Hungary game, and he did better than Tziois or Samaris could do in that spot. Having him there allows Samaris to play in a more natural position for him and play as an 8ari, he won't have to worry as much about his defensive duty because he has K Pap back there covering for him. Tachtsidis should play just to get some more experience in these meaningless games, Tziolis isn't a long term answer and shouldn't play. Fortounis has just been incredible this year, in his only Champions League start he made the team of the week just for JVC. Mitroglou has done well so far for Benfica, and Karelis has done ok for Panathinaikos. Klaus I believe is coming off of injury and hasn't done much this year so I wouldn't start him. Aravidis' style of play does not match well with the Ethniki, he's a player that pressures the back line and makes runs off the ball, for the ethniki this doesn't work because he is the only one doing it and it's not effective. On the ball he isn't great, I'd compare him to Salpigidis post Euro 2012, a great professional, works hard, but on the ball he's just not good enough for this level, even though he's better than Salpigidis was the last few years. Truth be told, in his only two caps he was played out of position, much like Salpigidis was, but his performance was still shocking. With this lineup we'd have lots and lots of height. K Pap Manolas Sokratis Tachtsidis and Mitroglou are all tall. Karelis Torosidis and Samaris aren't as tall as the others but they aren't short and all have solid headers. With Fortounis and Holebas, we should threaten from set pieces. But with this clown Tsanas as coach we wouldn't use that lineup, we'd probably start this: Karnezis Torosidis Sokratis Manolas Holebas Samaris Tziolis Karelis Fortounis Aravidis Mitroglou

Our training staff did a s%$#! job with conditioning this summer and the fitness level on our players suck. Johanson can't handle the heat very well, he needs a break. If Soiledis plays instead of Didac then Umbides and Napoleoni will have a field against him.

Olsen......

He has scored in the Nou Camp

Must win game before we go to the Tigani. We play Sunday at home at 4 o'clock Greek time, Atromitos is coming off of 3 straight losses and will go all out for the win. We should go with something like this Baroja Galo Kolovetsios Tzanetopoulos Didac Simoes Johanson Barbosa Buonanotte Mantalos Aravidis Barbosa is on form and deserves a start, Buonanotte is best behind the striker and I'm curious to see Mantalos on the wing. Ideally we'd be able to rest Johanson who is clearly tired but Cordero still isn't ready... Anyways it's the last game before an international break so he should have a few days off to catch his breath and get some rest during the break. Atromitos has some good players so our defense needs to stop making amateur mistakes, we got to cut those out or else we are gonna get murdered against the gavro. Maybe we should start Arzo in this one? Didac is a must play regardless. ANT1 will broadcast the game I think.

http://aek365.novasports.gr

Saw the highlights, amazing free kick by Barbosa. We had chances to score, and from what I read we could have scored more goals if we had a real striker. Vargas was a disappointed according to many, I haven't read much about Didac, how did he do? Anyways, good to see the team get a ballsy comeback and great to see Mantalos play 90 minutes again. Also a nice finish by Buonannotte on the goal. Hopefully the chemistry builds between Diego Mantalos and Vargas, if that happens then we will be very dangerous. Need a win on Sunday against Atromitos before we go to the Tigani.

I missed the game, great comeback, can't wait to see the highlights.

Dusan isn't even the president of the team!!!!!!! http://www.aekfc.gr/pel/dioikitiko-symvoulio-43388.htm?lang=el&path=1966086743 He's not even on the board! He's just there collecting a paycheck and making decisions because of his ego!

Find me one other club in the world where someone who isn't the president has more say than the head coach in staff hirings, and transfers. That's an amateur move to have a senile 70 year old make all the important decisions, he's been past it since 2007, his last stint as our head coach should have been enough of a warning sign. He's holding us back.

Completely agree with this, the problem is that Bajavic is still around the team and has way too much power with this team, Dellas listens to him way too much and it's hurting the team. Bajavic also has to approve all the deals Milovanovic makes. Bajavic has to go.

It looks like Simoes is playing after all. Mantalos, Buonannote, Barbosa, Vargas, and Platellas are all fighting for the 3 spots in behind Aravidis with the first 3 being the most likely choices so far.

We play Monday away in Veria at 7:30 Greek time. We need to win this game, we can't afford to lose this since we go to Karaiskaki in match day 7. We've had trouble away but this Veria team isn't as good defensively as Xanthi, and our players won't feel the pressure they did against PAOK. Fatigue might be an issue for some players since it seems our fitness coaches did a terrible job in conditioning during the pre season. I would start something like this: Baroja Galo Kolovetsios Tzanetopoulos Didac Johanson Simoes Barbosa Diego Mantalos Aravidis Barbosa has been on solid form recently and he deserves a start, having some real wingers that press will help us against a team that will sit back and defend. Mantalos almost tied the game by himself against PAOK when he came on, he looks like he's ready. I don't think it's fair to judge Buonanotte on the PAOK game because the entire team was poor and our 3 midfielders couldn't win or keep possession long enough to get Diego involved. Johanson has to better, his form has been really bad lately, Maybe he's tired, maybe the heat bothers him since he's not used to it being from Sweeden, who knows, if Cordero was fit I'd start him and sit Johanson. There's a chance Simoes is out hurt, and it was reported that Mantalos will only start if the pitch is in good condition. Assuming Cordero isn't ready to start yet, and If for some reason both Mantalos and Simoes are out we should use this: Baroja Galo Kolovetsios Arzo Didac Johanson Tzanetopoulos Platellas Diego Barbosa Aravidis I want to see what Arzo and Didac can do, Milovanovic has only missed on Chrisantus so far and I trust his judgement but it's weird that we haven't seen either of the two Spaniards yet. If Simoes is actually out I would like to see this lineup but I'm sure Dellas will play Anakoglou next to Johanson and Tzanetopoulos would go back to Centerback and move Arzo to the bench. Please Dellas, no more Soiledis in away games, only home games against bad teams unless Didac proves to be even worse. For those in America, the game will be on Sportplus.

I've been thinking about how we can possibly fit Mantalos, Diego, and Vargas into the same starting eleven and have them all play in a more control position and there's only one way to do it: play a 4-4-2 with a diamond in the middle. ---------------------------Baroja---------------- Galo--------Kolovetsios------Tzanetopoulos----------Didac -------------------------Johanson--------------------------------- ----------------Simoes-----------Mantalos---------------------- --------------------------Vargas------------------------------------ -----------------Diego------------Aravidis------------------------ This is literally the only possible way to do it and have them all play in a central area. Why it might work: Mantalos has played as an 8ari before at Xanthi and I think he can do well for us there since he will have Simoes next to him to be more defensive and Johanson behind him cleaning up. Vargas seems to be way way way more useful behind the strikers than anywhere else on the field, he's a very skillful player but his stamina so far is a major concern, we need his ability. Up top, Diego would be playing as a second striker a little behind Aravidis in a more "free" role, back when Manolo Jimenez was our coach he used this formation in a 4-0 destruction of PAOK and he used Scocco in that second striker position and it was arguably his second best game with AEK ever. Diego and Scocco have a lot of similarities so he should have the same impact. Aravidis of course would be more forward and hopefully finishing off chances created by the three behind him. Why it might not work: The defense, primarily the wing back positions. In Toumpa we saw Dellas use a 4-3-3 formation that left us with no wingers at all. As a result only Galo and Soiledis offered width when we attacked, and when we were on defense they had no cover from the wings that usually Platellas and Barbosa offer. Soiledis well we all know is a tragic defender but even Galo was exposed. Didac should do better than Soiledis did with no cover but Galo being exposed was an issue. With Johanson being severely out of form the last two games, our Centerbacks have faced more and more attacks and haven't been great. The first two games of the year Johanson was a pit bull, he cut out everything and transitioned the ball well to attack. We faced 0 clear chances in those games. The last two however, Johanson has been pretty poor, especially in Toumba. Against Pas, he didn't close down on the goal scorer and he scored the long range shot. Against PAOK, he was eaten alive, we faced 15 clear cut scoring opportunities and the inexperience from Tzanetopoulos and Kolovetsios showed, they made many mistakes because of the nerves I believe. If it wasn't for Baroja we would have lost 6-1. I don't think we can possibly start all 3 at once, it would be extremely risky. What do you guys think?

Perfectly put, yesterday I realized just how important Platellas is to this team. He's a true winger which we lacked yesterday, he pressures the defense which we lacked yesterday, and he gets back on defense which we lacked yesterday. If Dellas played him instead of Anakoglou and played the 4-2-3-1 like normal I'm 1000% we would have played much better, and I'm fairly confident we would have gotten at least a point out of the game. Dellas also needs to figure out which one of our 3 dekaria will be benched, Mantalos won't be because he's our leader and is willing to play on the wing, I'm think Diego starts in the middle and Mantalos on the wings with the constantly switching, and then in the second half of we are losing Vargas comes on for Platellas or Vargas comes on if Diego or Mantalos are tired.

http://www.aek365.com/a-418849/ston-pago-o-sidhropoulo.htm We've seen the last of Sidiropoulos for a while, last week Mantalos was sent away for giving us a penalty, this week Sidiropoulos is sent away for not giving us a penalty. P.S. Simoes is out injured for the Veria game but hopefully will be fine for the Atromitos game.

http://www.sdna.gr/podosfairo/superleague/article/117267/sto-podosfairo-den-kerdizei-panta-o-kalyteros Pretty solid article by Ketsetsoglou for once.

Seeing the highlights we played like s%$#! but the goals PAOK did score were very lucky. The first one, Kolovetsios blocks a shot and the ball redirects straight to Rodriguez who shoots and the ball goes off the post and in. On the second goal, Berbatov uses his hands to elevate over Soiledis to win the initial header and should have been called as an offensive foul before Soiledis made the bonehead challenge. The chances at the end that we made were our best play of the game, Mantalos had a very hard headed saved by Olsen, I think Platellas crossed the ball across the front of the goal and any touch would have redirected it in, Tzavellas was a centimeter away from scoring an own goal and tying it up... Baroja made some brilliant saves in the first half to keep us in it. This doesn't excuse our team for playing and coaching like Gatakia, I don't want to see us scared to play any team ever again. Dellas needs to change his ways and adapt, if we keep dropping points away like this he'll be fired.

If we go in to karaiskaki with this formation, lineup, and loser mentality we will lose 7-0. Dellas has to change. We have to win on Monday at Veria and next Sunday against Atromitos. We can't drop any more points before the Olympiakos game.

Took out his knee... Should have been called... But I still can't get over how bad we were. 4-2-3-1 from now on only, the fact that we have 3 dekaria on our team and we went into this game with a formation that doesn't use a dekari is ridiculous. The introduction of Platellas made us much better today, we all knew that a player like him would be huge in a derby... We should have stolen a point in this game at least...

http://www.aek365.com/a-418779/to-gkol-th-aek-video.htm Watch the video of the penalty given to PAOK. Clearly correct call but WHAT THE F*** IS SOILEDIS DOING

Right before PAOKs penalty we weren't given a penalty for a tackle that injured Simoes for the rest of the game...

Olson made the save of his life...

We played like losers today