Bananas

I don’t understand where this Olympiakos is unlucky meme has come from. They are 10 points behind us and they struggle to score. They have a good foundation and play nice but that doesn’t mean you deserve to win. To win you gotta stick the ball in the net. Now all of a sudden the game against Milan is the norm, and all their other games were aberrations. We’ll see. Until proven otherwise I’m inclined to think the Milan game was the aberration. And the media ha ha. Olympiakara. Best team in Greece. But can’t win a derby. Oh that’s right they’re unlucky. And PAOK is lucky ... for 13 games. The thing with PAOK (and anyone with a brain should see this) is they only need to turn it on for 10-15 minutes and they can score 2 goals. Which is generally what they’ve done. Couple that with a rock solid defence (at least in the GSL), and most teams in the GSL being fairly crappy standard, and there you have why PAOK are where they are this year. Anyway, let’s see what the rest of the season brings. And Marinakis, the donut king, “this is for all Greece”. Fark off donut man. Been raping and pillaging Greece for how long and now he’s all “this is for Greece”. Farking banana.

The CL qualification run was good. The EL run was very poor given the teams in our group. Lucescu (and I think the team psychologically) have prioritised the league. Even so we should have qualified. Regarding CL we all saw the beat down AEX copped. It would have been the same for us. We saw the vast difference in quality against Chelsea. Boys against men really. We have maybe 3 or 4 players who can kind of compete at that level. The football world has changed a lot in the last 15 years or so and Greece got left behind or rather, didn’t change and adapt.

Ugh! What the hell happened in this EL campaign ? 3 lousy stinking points. Hats off to BATE. I remember in the post game interview after we defeated them in their home ground their manager said that they had a particularly poor game that was out of character. As for us, what is our excuse ? At least AEK and Olympiakos have proper serious teams in their campaigns. We had the mighty BATE and Vidi. What I find bewildering is the very good CL qualifying campaign we had. But now, I wonder about Lucescu's ability in Europe. GSL is one thing and Europe is another beast. Greece, sliding down the UEFA rankings with no bottom in sight. I really really hope this campaign was our "out of character" season in Europe. Then again, what about last season ? Losing to some part time vikings. Not cool man, not cool.

Ridiculous to think we could qualify with 6 points. Regardless of the Chelsea result we need to get the 3 points for the coefficient rating.

Rumours that Mystakidis is wanting to go to PAO permanently. They don’t want to deal with loan players anymore which is fair enough. I agree with that. So if true we may see Mystakidis try and push the club for an early.release. On the upside the club will need to make a decision on if they want him to be part of the club or not moving forward. Time to include the kid or let him go.

Kougias and Karapapas howling like wolves. Aowwww. They’re crying and whinging is something else. Brings tears to my eyes. Kougias I can kind of “understand”. The man is impetuous. He can’t be helped. Karapapas where do you start. And we wonder what is wrong with Greece when you have characters like this that are actually employed and get a salary to spew their idiocy. We’ll set aside the fact that for years Oly benefited from bad refereeing but now that their team isn’t strong enough to overcome it, they want “better” referees. Maybe Karapapas should make an alliance with Savvidis to try get VAR ? But I suspect he doesn’t want better referees, he just wants referees that are more pro Oly. The hypocrisy is truly astounding. One day Oly will lose or draw a game and they won’t compile a long list of all the penalties and fouls they didn’t receive. I leave you with Hanlon’s Razor (regarding the quality of Greek refereeing which has been hollowed out for years) : Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I go away on a cruise for 10 days and come back to find jvc has taken big dumps all over the forum. Good to see some things never change.

An apathetic 0-0 or 1-1 is about the best I think we could hope for. Regardless of what team they put on the pitch they will create 5 opportunities for every 1 we have. It just is what it is. Still you never know and this team has given us many sweet victories over the years. Here’s hoping against all the odds.

I had the same username there also.

Respect ? Even if we win the title with zero losses they will say we won because of Syriza, Tsipras, Ivan Savvidis, Putin, Ivan the Terrible, Rasputin, Greek Referees, Foreign Referees, VAR, no VAR, you name it. I don't expect any respect. That would imply a sort of neutral analysis and I don't expect any such thing. So just keep winning and watching them squirm with how "lucky" we are. One day I will hear an opposition fan say "you know what, your team is actually pretty good" and when that happens I will know I have died and gone to heaven.

What happened to koproskila ? Are you trying to jinx the team ?!

@BostonThanatos thanks for the laugh. Olympiacos, the victims ha ha ha.

Nice to see another Aris poster come to the site (even though I am from the enemy - PAOK). I remember you from the old gs site. Welcome.

Bakasetas and Lambropoulos not such a big deal. They are good players but are very replaceable. Simoes on the other hand is not easily replaceable. I hope PAOK try to get him even though I believe Simoes would never go for such an option. Great player, consistent and just plain solid. Easily in the top 3 names you put down on your team sheet each week. Good luck finding a player with similar quality and consistency.

I’m not a huge fan of stats as they can be misleading but if you look at Fetfa he’s back to his usual self. In a total of 20 possible games for Olympiacos he has played only 3 full games. The rest is off the bench, 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there. A total of 1 assist. Pretty appalling figures. But I’m not surprised. This has been par for the course for Fetfa. If he was such a gun he would’ve played most games for his club team. Not cameo appearances off the bench. He’ll be 28 years old next month. That is peak age. He should be setting the GSL on fire! Instead the only thing on fire is the bench he keeps warming. Other than the Arab league, he’s hardly played one solid season. Sorry but for me he’s not a proper player. Far from complete. Lacks in many parts of his game (hence why manager after manager can’t make it work with him). He’s a pea heart. His best move would’ve been to go to a smaller team so he can play every match. Maybe then he’d get match fit and more importantly mentally fit because I tell you now, mentally he’s not there. And if he’s not there at 28 years old, he’ll never be there. As always, if he starts killing it, I’ll be the first to admit it. But until then, for me, he’s a mid table GSL player. Panionios level at best, let alone NT.

No idea who this Branco is. I’m kind of surprised the hand over wasn’t done at the end of the season. What’s the rush ? I can only assume Michel wanted out now. Overall Michel has been a very good TD. There’s been some so so signings especially this summer (none have really come good yet) but there’s also been some superb signings.

Can’t tell you for sure. It’s just a feeling. But I think they’re just going for someone new to start fresh. And honestly, I’ve *never* heard a bad word about Basinas. He’s always had that image of being a good honest guy that jut works hard. I liked the interview where Angel said he only needs one minute to sort a player out, ha ha. I hope he has the boys frothing at the mouth come game time.

Also, no idea why Karelia has been selected over Lazaros. Bizarre.

Why you boys have a love affair with Fetfa I will never understand. The guy is so meek and fragile. If he actually starts killing it in the GSL then fair enough, I will change my opinion, but right now I wouldn’t be selecting him either. And no, I don’t believe in giving him a chance just because he has good technique. That is not enough. Koulouris on the other hand (who has 25% the technique of Fetfa) has *earned* the right to be given a chance due to his performances so far in the GSL. And that’s the way it should be. I sincerely hope Angel goes with 3-5-2 with Koulouris and Mitro up front. Our Ethniki has been unable to score more than 1 goal a game for years now. Simply put, we need more firepower. And we need to apply more pressure on the opposition. The 3 at the back are obvious. I’d like to see Risvanis get selected and get some time off the bench. I believe he’s earned it and would make a good rotation player for the NT. In the middle I hope we only have one of Zeca or Kourbelis. You can’t have more than one hacker in the team without destroying your attacking potential. Zeca and the 3 at the back should be enough to defend with. If you’re so afraid of conceding that you need to play 2 exaria then might as well pack up your bags and don’t even bother coming to the game. I’m tired of watching this scaredy cat approach we have. As to the other two midfielders. Obviously one goes to Fortounis and the other I’d go Pelkas (for his running). Then sub whoever isn’t performing with Mantalos. GK not fussed. I’d go with Vlach but happy with any of them. They are all solid selections. Nice to have depth there. The wing backs is tricky. Not sure who is best at this stage for these positions.

Good to see Kitsiou play and play well. I dare say he played better than what Matos has been lately. Likewise Shakhov played half decent also. We need all players to step up when called upon if we want to win the title. All aboard ... choo choo.

How many games undefeated will it take before you admit PAOK has a half decent team ? We are at 10 now. If we get to 15 will that do it ? ?

Thanks champ. Interesting interview. Feeling positive about the two Angels.

Hell yeah man.

I'm more annoyed at the loss of coefficient points than anything else. We need (and Greece needs) every coefficient point we can get and these last 2 games have been a waste. I think that Lucescu is showing a lack of experience and nous in Europe. He's very good for the Greek League. He knows the league, its teams etc. But in Europe maybe he's not so good. Then again, we played so well in the qualifiers. Not I'm confused ha ha.

Sickos.