Bananas

Good result and a great strike from Araujo. What is the world coming to when Meli actually invests in the squad. Araujo will give more options and balance up front. Just make sure to send him the memo saying he’s not allowed to score against PAOK. ?

Man, that's crap news regarding Crespo. He's been such a dependable player for us. Good boy too. None of the antics like Varela when it came to contract negotiations. Varela at his absolute best I would say is better, but he's not been there for quite a while. Give me a dependable Crespo any day. Yes, let's see if Mihaj can play at this level. In other news, Prijovic is apparently a free agent. Does that mean we could sign him even though the transfer window is closed ?

Great to see him score and a superb goal! But the selfish side of me was hoping he'd be riding the bench for the rest of the season in the small hope that we might sign him next season.

I don't know what the answer is Athens4. But doing nothing is not the answer either. I'm sure there are options out there. If I wait for Greeks to be educated in this sphere of life, I guess I'll be waiting for a long time.

I have no doubt the current "pick a game out of the next 4 games" system was devised to benefit the big boys. In this case OFI is using it to their own perceived benefit. It is what it is even though it has a bad smell to it.

I agree the rule is a bit odd. I guess it gives teams flexibility. Moving to the side a little, what I don’t get is why there are even bans for getting “x” number of cards. Who cares ? If a team wants to risk getting stacks of yellow cards each game then they also risk getting more reds. That should be incentive enough. Anyway ... As to OFI resting half their squad, I guess they figure the chance of getting a point is low so might as well rest their players and use them in the next game. Not cool but I get it. As for Vieirinha at RB, not if pash has anything to say about it. ?

It’s been mentioned how many times. Seat allocations along with ID would solve this problem fairly quickly. You know, like how you go to a concert and have to sit at your allocated seat. It’s 2020 but when it comes to Greece it’s 1980.

There *has* to be a better way. It's not like all these years of bans have really achieved anything.

What about peponi republic ? But that will always remind us of Maduro.

Just a thought, could Misic decline to the transfer ?

It sounds harsh but I just don't like Koulouris even though he banged in a ton of goals last season. He just seems like a klutz, like he's not well balanced. I think playing in France will help him develop though so who knows what the future might bring. I would like to see Mihaj get some game time to see if he has something to offer. With Crespo out it seems Varela and Ingason are too alike. Crespo was the perfect complement to either. Which brings me back to Mihaj. I have no idea what sort of player he is but I'm hoping he's more "Crespo" and less "Varela". We'll need to sort out the midfield which would've been tragic this season had it not been for Misic. Mauricio, Esiti, Augusto all not good enough at the moment. I don't see us resigning Mauricio unless he improves massively in the next few months. Up front I think we're ok. Good enough at least for the GSL. Just need to get a class "Oliveira" midfielder to partner Misic and we'll look a much better team.

+1 million.

Vre koufales, I've been telling you all for ages Vieirinha is *much* better as a wing back, be it left or right. He is much more productive and useful to the team. It's like we're playing with a 3rd winger. When you play as a forward it's a different game to playing as a defender. A lot of the time you have your back to goal and have defenders up your arse. When you play as a defender or a defensive midfielder you play looking ahead and generally don't have someone nearby ready to man mark at an instant. You can pick and choose the timing of your runs. This is why Vieirinha is more productive; because he actually does have a good football brain and can pick and choose when to exploit space, or move up to provide the extra option and throw the opposition off. Lamprou was impressive, obviously not his finishing, but the fact that he found so much space. The kid has something. This is not the right time, but I'd like to see a run of game where he starts as the 10 playing as a second striker. As to the match at hand, good solid result but it will be tough in Athens. They will back themselves and justifiably so. If they get the first goal it's on for young and old. Hopefully we can get the first goal to kill off the game early.

This is where Lucescu for me was a much better manager. Lucescu gets the job done and is the definition of practical. Abel wants to do it pretty but the problem is he doesn’t have the players to play the way he wants. Now he finds himself in a bind. He can brush off the defeat to Aris as an unlucky game but what happened against PAO is on him. I’m not sure if he doesn’t know what to do or if it’s against his principles but either way if he wants to win the title he’s going to need to be more tactical, adapt to the opposition, play players to their strengths and get more out of certain players, especially Pelkas, Biseswar and Akpom. He also needs to get that midfield sorted.

Bring on the CL! Sorry I was in an parallel universe. These days even if you have one weakness a decent coach should exploit it, and Donis did that. Vieirinha shouldn't have started on the left. PAO is *all run* and we don't have enough to hold the ball, hence we have to run also, and we couldn't. Also Mauricio shouldn't be starting. We've been getting away with this in other games because of the level difference but no so in these games. As to if Abel is the man to lead us next year, not sure. Definitely not at this stage but he has time to make it up. We'll see.

Probably done by the same production team that faked the moon landings.

Yes very quiet transfer window. Having said that I prefer not buying players just for the sake of it. I don't ever remember a transfer window where we didn't buy at least one player.

Worst newspaper in Melbourne for years now and noticeably worse in this internet era. Haven't read it in years. It's barely one step up from New Idea.

The problem as always is in the midfield. Augusto and Esiti haven't been the players we expected given their price tags. Esiti has shown some glimmers and is more suited to this game where I wouldn't be surprised if PAO overrun us in the middle. Either way will be a tough game. Hopefully a good game and may the best team win whoever that is.

Hopefully we can win and BAOG drop points against the rabbits. If the bulgarian animals, oug oug, from up north get deducted points we will be top where we belong. Russians be gone!

Never really checked out sdna but I’ll give it a go. Blackhawk, if it’s as you say, then the entire situation is ridiculous and extremely volatile.

Nerd alert. Batten down the hatches.

I think maybe on sport24.gr can’t be sure. It’s the only site I really check out other this or inpaok. In other news, I just read the league might be suspended. And that will solve what exactly ? Either Savvidis did something illegal or he didn’t. Work it out guys.

I’m just parroting what I’ve read, which is the one of the companies owned by Savvidis loaned money to a relative or whatever of his who then somehow invested in Xanthi. As to the truth of any of it, I have no idea. If there is truth to it, then Savvidis is an idiot. Why even give the powers that be any ammunition. It’s not as if they are going to be impartial. This isn’t a normal judicial process. If there isn’t any truth to it, then that changes everything. Maybe Blackhawk can enlighten us on the exact accusations and supposed evidence ?

I don’t have a problem with the law being applied to PAOK. What I have a problem with is the way in Greece it’s applied haphazardly depending on who is running EPO and who is in government at the time. Either way that doesn’t take away from the fact that Savvidis played a dumb ass move with these dealings. By the same token the reaction from the government was just as stupid. All they had to do was force him to sell or give up whatever stake he had in Xanthi or threaten to take away PAOK’s license. Job done nice and easy. Instead we have a city that is a powder keg just waiting to go off. Nice work.