Bananas

Ideally, the opponent would be from a league where games haven't been played in a long time. Of course, AZ are a special case as the Dutch are our kryptonite.

Check yourself mate, lest your post gets deleted!

There are players out there that are cheap or can be brought in on a free transfer. The problem is having someone that has the vision to spot a player and wages. Examples of players we brought, Mak, Rodrigues, Lucas all under a million. Michel brought Matos and I think Mauricio as free transfers. Campos and Biseswar I think also we’re free transfers. Prijovic considering what he did for us was a steal at roughly 2 million. Crespo was cheap. Varela 1 million. Canas and Shakhov I think free transfers. I’d have to check some but you get what I mean. If you want Oliviera quality, that’s just too difficult right now. We just don’t have the budget. As to paschalis point, he is right about the difficulty in getting players to play in Greece. Most of the names mentioned were swayed by a fairly high salary, which has now given us problems with FFP which need to be sorted out. Still, what was done I believe had to be done to compete for the title. It will be interesting to see how the team juggles the roster and wages to accommodate FFP regulations.

Aris well and truly did a number on us this season. Hats off to them. We couldn’t even beat them when they have only 13 players available. What I’m quite certain of is we lack a “killer” striker. Akpom battles but will never pop in lots of goals. He’s a different sort of player. Swiderski is ok but a bit on the soft side. He ain’t no killer. its really simple for next season. Get a better striker if you want to contend for the title.

We've never been tested. The only thing we're good at is receiving points deductions which we seem to excel at. I guess there was the Ivic fiasco with the beer can (was it full, was it empty, was it half empty) but for myself and many other PAOK fans that never sat well. What Ivic did was ridiculous and he should have seen the game out. Regardless, hats off to Melissanidis for a reasonable decision. Henceforth, I shall refer to AEX as AEK. So let it be written, so let it be done.

For the money Fener is offering it's not even worth thinking about. Maybe they're using the FFP situation as a bargaining chip. Still, I'd be disappointed if we sold him for so little.

Yes anything is possible. I'm ok with the CL qualifiers. It's the EL qualifiers where we should be winning where we've fallen.

We miss you Yiankos. Don't worry about @Tzatziki. We'll take him out the back for a good old fashioned touch up.

It’s not that simple for AEK. They have always felt aggrieved for the title they lost on paper in 2008 so for them to do this would be a huge about face. There is the risk some of their own fans could turn. As for Olympiacos, they should seriously consider creating a law firm as a side business. Being litigious comes naturally to them. Our Scottish friend raises a good point regarding if the clubs even need to raise the complaint. Shouldn’t EPO action it regardless. And to make matters worse, shouldn’t officials of some sort have checked said paperwork before games went ahead. What a bourdelo of a season it’s been, even by Greek standards.

What is the point of these player passes ? Sounds like a case of red tape for the sake of it. Who is ineligible and why ? Did a player suddenly appear that isn’t part of our squad ? Apparently the club forgot to fill in the TPS reports. You want to see cheating, you should’ve seen back in the day in junior soccer where teams would dodgy up the “passports” to field older players. Anyway that’s another story.

They should pursue it if they want to stay true to their name. AEX AEX AEX. Let's see what comes of this. I'm not that fussed to be honest as I put our chances of qualifying to the CL group phase as 0.01% anyway.

Does anyone know the specifics concerning our situation with FFP ? How much do we need to makes on sales and/or reduce wages ? Are we even in breach right now and need do rectify it by a certain date ? Looking at our roster I can’t see many players who could be sold for more than a few million. Specifically Giannoulis “the youngster”, Limnios and Akpom. All the rest I can’t see serious money being handed over for them. Much to my dismay I learnt that Wernbloom’s contract still has another year to go.

Most unexpected. Not just the result but the manner of the win. It's not like we parked the bus and were outplayed. Football is strange when you consider our previous games in these play offs.

I was thinking Misic is our box to box, but yes, he's a level below Oliveira, or different rather. And now that he's injured it's moot anyhow. Other than him, that leaves Mauricio, who has checked out now mentally.

In Greece the fakelaki is mightiest of all. Savvidis is still working this out though. He’s a slow learner. Let’s see what the EPO kangaroo court brings. And how many people are assaulted and threatened along the way. The formula has precedent.

They just need to find a decent DM and the team will start playing 5x better. We're lacking up front but I believe that’s a confidence thing. If they can sort out the middle things will improve. We went from having Mauricio in stellar form coupled with Oliveira to having only Misic this season. Esiti and Augusto are lacking. Better to have kept Canas and Shakhov than these two. Who even knows what will happen with Misic.

We should take a leaf out of the book and try to win a title sta xartia. It seems to be a successful strategy.

This outcome is pretty crap. I just wanted it done and dusted. After all that basically it goes back to EPO. And now what’s worse we could get more points deductions next season ?! What a bourdelo.

Melbourne, Australia has gone back into lock down for 6 weeks. There has been a spike in the last 2 weeks or so and numbers started climbing little by little hitting over 100 new cases per day. Lock down begins Monday 11th. And then I look at figures from Texas, Florida and think, are those numbers real ? That can't be right. Just crazy.

Maybe so. Who knows how the players think. To be fair, if I was a decent player with no allegiance to PAOK the episode would make me think "one day when I'm out of here and playing in a normal league I won't have to put up with this crap". It must be disheartening. Side note, the roster is due for a clean out and shake up on many levels.

The problem is, we won a league (after 35 years) and that to Olympiacos is just *unacceptable*. Savvidis also asked for foreign referees and they are harder to bribe. Savvidis also payed off the tax liability (minus interest and penalties which he negotiated to be excluded, fair enough, business is business) unlike AEX. The Xanthi thing does have a bad smell to it, fair enough, but if that's the worst you got, that's not so bad. And we've been punished for it. Olympiacos only gets punished in an alternate universe. On a side note, hopefully Aris do get a decent president one day. That story about the gate money getting stolen still makes me laugh.

It's crazy how bad the team is at the moment. I'm sure management is regretting Abel's salary, it's the only thing stopping him from being fired. As for CL, forget it, and the way the team is currently, what's the point anyway. We'll struggle through EL qualifiers as it is if something doesn't change and quick. Management will either have to risk (and pray) Abel "works it out" or bite the bullet and pay him out. When you see a team playing this way, they've pretty much lost faith in the manager. They'll nod their head and do enough to not get benched but inside the head they're thinking "mate, you have no idea".

You can blame EPO, Marinakis, Melissanidis for our 7 point deduction and I guess we'll see what comes of that from CAS. But who can we blame for the poor showing of the team post the covid break ? I can accept the results against Olympiacos, they are a solid team that have got their balance right after being a bit all over the place last season. How can we go from playing a good game in the Cup to the last two performances against AEK and OFI ? I'm not talking about the results, but the way the team is being played off the park. Maybe it's as simple as we have no midfield since the injuries to Misic and Augusto but I don't think it's the simple. There is enough depth there to cover. This reminds of the team a few seasons back when you didn't know what you were going to get from week to week and half to half and we would be holding on for dear life at the end of games. Abel has a lot to answer for and if it wasn't for his large salary I think he'd be 100% gone.

That would be a bit brutal if true. He hasn’t impressed but at least he showed some tactical awareness in the cup game. To be fair, we are inferior to last season. The following are all lesser players (regardless of reason); Matos, Vieirinha, Varela, Mauricio, Biseswar. Add to that we have no real striker (I very much miss Prijovic getting those cheap goals). We also had Oliveira, the midfield was brutal. This year our midfield is fairly meek with the exception of Misic. There is a lot of work to do to rebuild the team. Abel has been too ideological and not practical but maybe now he gets it. So I don’t blame him entirely. Having said that I’m sure Lucescu would have done a better job. I’m all for replacing him with someone better but the truth is we’ve only had one top manager in the last seven seasons. I’d see how the play offs roll on and go from there. Which probably means he’s already been fired.

As in why didn't she try and run for the Dem nomination ?