Bananas

I saw highlights. It was one way traffic for Aris and you gave them a beat down. Very good win. It has taken a little time but maybe the new coach isn't so bad, but I still think the firing of the ispano was outrageous. Let us see how the team does for the rest of the season and hopefully they strengthen and improve (except against PAOK of course when you should always lose 4-0 ha ha).

Don't worry @PAOTHEGREAT soon ND will govern in Greece and the economy will be fixed. People will be able to spend lots of money on important things like football and bouzoukia (every 20 year old I ask that visits Greece swears the economy is fine) instead of worrying about food and how they will heat their home.

Good win. Seemed like a bit of a training session i.e. lacking intensity. Some good saves by Paschalakis. Henrique at the end, ha ha.

What the hell is going on with the injury to Canas ? Just curious.

It is the way of the modern football world unfortunately. How else can you go up against someone like Olympiacos and Marinakis ? Even this took Savvidis a while to work out. The first 3-4 years he still spent half or less compared to Olympiacos. It's only last year and this year that Savvidis has matched their budget, which doesn't entitle us to anything really, but you can see the results in the league. By that I mean the overall consistency. P.S. You guys played a good game.

That’s the thing, there is no “winning” with a Greek referee. If he favours us it’s because of Savvidis, Tsipras, if not Marinakis, Melissanidis etc etc. It’s better this way and at least we can all not worry about corruption (or at least it’s much less likely). One day in about 2000 years maybe we can have our own referees again. Not anytime soon I imagine.

Can you imagine what would've happened if it was a Greek referee ? Mafia Marinakis would've been blamed for everything. Fans rioting etc. No thanks. I'd rather have a foreign referee even if he is twice as bad as the Greek referee. Because at least that way when a mistake happens, people can just shrug their shoulders and say "it was a mistake" and get over it.

Not in the mood right now. It’s interesting though looking at posts like these as a snapshot of where we were at.

Re jvc, I get what you’re saying but you speak as if PAOK is to blame or something. All PAOK (and every other club) can do is to try and be a little better each season compared to the one before. You speak as if we are not allowed to rejoice at the idea of potentially winning a title for the first time since 1985. Should we be miserable instead ? You speak of lack of investment but Savvidis has poured in vast amounts of money into the club. More than any PAOK fan could have ever guessed in a million years. If you really cared about Greek football, you would become a PAOK supporter, the one club that is really trying and investing (and also change your username to insert a ‘K’ as the 4th letter). As for CL and our teams being competitive, that I keep telling you (but you are a xerokefalo with the attention span of a goldfish) is from a bygone era. The world has changed. Benfica were once a powerhouse, Nottingham Forest, Ajax, etc etc etc. Your beloved CL changed all that. All the money goes to the 10 or so biggest clubs and the rest are just little fish making up the numbers. This is the reality.

Rodrigues started slowly at Galatasaray but by the time he left he was doing very well. I’ll always have a soft spot for him for that goal he scored against Fiorentina and for that game against Panathinaikos in Toumba where he single handedly dismantled their defence in the first 30 minutes of the game.

No dribble, no control no vision ... just goals. Lots and lots of them. I’ll miss the big lug, but yeah I get what you’re saying. I’d still have him in the team. Lucescu just didn’t want to mess with a formula that working and really who can blame him.

He he he :)

I think our friend @PAOTHEGREAT has forgotten to take his pills. Some serious mood swings there. Even some gnashing of teeth. Maybe one day when (if ?) his club is great again, we will swell with pride and support them as they smash opponents into the CL, because apparently we used to. I can't remember doing that, but then again my memory isn't what it used to be.

@PAOTHEGREAT you see no difference because you haven’t been paying attention. More teams are wanting foreign referees just to know that games aren’t corrupt. Sad but true. The foreign refs can make mistakes, but at least we know it’s a mistake and he wasn’t bought. As for your saviour Mitsotakis, yeah, bring on the messiah. I’ll know the league is swinging Athens way if foreign referees are not the norm next year.

Terrible signing. I thought he’d be better than Varela given the hype. Pack your bags and gtfo.

Oliveira has played like 90 minutes of football for us. Let’s wait a bit before we start wetting our pants. He seems good, but 12 million good ? Even 6 million is a lot for us. For 6 million I’d expect a player who is twice as good as every midfielder we currently have. As for Jaba, I know he’s only gotten regular football in the last month or so but I can see him being sold for more than Prijo.

Cool article. I love little behind the scenes snippets like these. Gotta say, Michel has been very good for the club. Really improved the squad. It’s interesting how he pinpoints getting Vieirinha as a shift in the club. If you were to look back at my posts I was against us signing Vierinha. I really thought he was just using us for one final big pay day. And at the time the salary seemed outrageous, for what I believed was an over the hill player. How wrong I was. So wrong. He really is a leader and just having him on the pitch makes such a huge difference.

@Molon Lave you will have to get a cool looking avatar if you want to get my vote. Just saying. ?

I don't like the idea of having 10 teams in a league. But I'd be willing to try it out as an experiment and see what comes of it. Minus play-offs of course. Even 12 I suppose. But it still feels wrong to me. Heck, if it was up to me, I'd make @PAOTHEGREAT life a complete nightmare and have 20 teams, like real leagues do.

Nice analysis. He's definitely been "reborn" in the last few weeks. Technically, he's very good. One of the best in the squad. My big issue was where he "fit" on the pitch. He's not a 10, and he's not really a winger. And he's not quite an 8. What the hell is he ? I mean, he can play all these positions but they didn't seem to fit 100%. I would say, he's best fit is as an inside forward. But regardless, he is versatile, and if he plays with the same passion at the same level he has played the last few weeks, no one will be complaining.

Akpom has surprised me. I didn’t think he’d be any good. Goes to show what I know. Still I miss Prijo and the fear he used to strike in the opposition.

At 39:20 in the press conference, a British journalist ask a question. What's with that ? I've never seen that sort of thing before. Since when do Brits even care what's happening in Greece. Of course we make exceptions for @DunfermlineAthleticPAOK.

Ha ha, Savvidis should have purchased 30,000 neck braces and handed them out to fans as they came into the stadium. Might make this my screen saver for a while. 3 donuts for Marinakis. Or should I say 3 bananas.

Don’t forget AEK. Now that they have they old manager back, they will be the BEST in no time. Give it a couple of weeks.

Happy for all PAOK fans today!