Bananas

Assuming there is any truth to this, you would have to think it's only for personal reasons. That is, he'd be back home in his country.

I'd like to know what the hell happened with Murg between last season and this season. He's a revelation. It's bizarre that a player who wasn't even training with the first team is now one of our best and most reliable players. His composure and finishing on that 2nd goal was excellent. Lots of forwards would've messed that up. I only saw the highlights this morning on Nova but if you ask me what was the best play of the day, it was Murg in the 23rd minute when he ran almost the length of the pitch to pressure their counter attack and then even be the last man back to clear the ball off the line. Damn impressive.

Overall a great campaign so far. Couldn't ask for more. Sure it's just the Conference League but if we're going to be here we should be spanking most of these teams. The victories over Eintracht were a nice bonus. We will now skip a round and go straight through to the round of 16. I'm curious, do we get any bonus UEFA coefficient points for skipping a game?

Angry official response from Marinakis incoming detailing the corruption in the Greek league. ? So many years of them being played 80/20 by referees has warped their minds. If this game was played 10 years ago the final score would have been 1-4 to Olympiacos.

Couldn't ask for a better draw. Avoided some tricky teams. No excuse for not advancing past the group stage.

Great outcome. These european qualifications are always so damn stressful with so much at stake.

Are you upset because AEX lost?

Jesus we just *love* to make things difficult for ourselves. I thought that part of "cleaning up" the back office and having technical directors, scouts etc. was to stop this amateur scrambling for transfers and instead actually plan (I know that sounds funny) and assemble the squad carefully. It's frustrating.

@pashif you can make sense of the link our illustrious leader provided please post it in these forums. I find financial terminology difficult to understand in English let alone Greek.

Our squad is thin this season. By that I mean the quality between the best 11 (who aren't too bad) and the bench. I can see us beginning to drop points from round 10'ish. Sooner if we qualify for the ECL.

Does PAOK actually produce P&L statements? It would be interesting to see. I'd be surprised if Savvidis isn't tens of millions in the red in his "investment" in PAOK. I think others forget before Savvidis our wages to players were *much* lower and even those measly amounts were often not paid in full. Players leaving the club unpaid and often we'd underpay them just so they could leave. Fire sales. A back office that was for the most part more a kafeneio than a modern professional club. Debts, lots of debts. Short term memory loss maybe. What was I talking about? If Savvidis were to leave and we went back to the old ways, the Athenians would *REJOICE*. As would sadly, a bunch of "PAOK" fans. It's ok to be frustrated at our lack of improvements since the title win. But to want to return to the old days ... insanity. In the meantime, I am trying to tee up a zoom meeting with Mitsotakis and PAOKSYD. Proving to be a bit harder than I thought.

Tsaousis loaned out, a shame. I thought he started really well last season until he got that nasty injury. Koulierakis, the kid is 19 and he plays like someone who has been playing senior football for many seasons. He is the "prototype" of exactly what you want your academy to produce. And to sell him for 5 million ... good lord. Even 10 is too cheap. 20+ minimum.

My personal opinion is that PAOKSYD is not really a PAOK fan but a troll, but hey that's just me. I don't have a problem with Savvidis leaving and a new owner coming in but I don't see anyone queueing up to spend their billions or hundreds of millions to take over PAOK. And I don't think Mitsotakis will help either, ha ha.

Given our defence was the corner stone of our league title and given how leaky our defence has been the last couple of seasons I would take Siopis happily. He would provide good cover for the defence. Siopis, Maksimovic and a number 10 and all of a sudden your team is looking so much better. Still other issues in the squad but this would be a very good start.

Augusto, given the state of this squad and the trouble we have finding decent transfers, I would say is almost irreplaceable. Our bench is seriously lacking in quality and players that can make the difference. If the interest from Nantes is real, he will go. Nantes sold their best midfielder to Rennes (according to a guy from my work who is a Rennes fan) for 15 million so they are looking for a replacement. Siopis would be a huge boon to our squad even though I don't see this transfer happening. We really need a tough ball winning midfielder who also gives cover to the defence. Our squad lacks balls.

I am not confident we will make the group stages and that would be disastrous. Overall the quality of the squad has not really improved. At most we have replaced like for like and only time will time if Ekong and Samatta are close to the level of Ingason and Oliveira. There purse strings have definitely been tightened and Savvidis is not spending as much. A couple of years ago it was down to FFP rules but not I'm not so sure it's just down to that now. At least we are infinitely better off financially compared to the years before Savvidis came to the club. Regardless, I checked in my back pocket and couldn't find any billionaires who also happen to be PAOK fans. @PAOKSYDshould we get in touch with Gina Rinehart? As for Boto leaving, to be honest all of our technical directors have been meh at best with the exception of Lubos Michel who helped bring together most of the squad that won the league. A referee ... would you believe it. It shouldn't be that hard to scout for solid players in leagues that are ranked below Greece or 2nd division players from stronger leagues.

Play the Athenian trio away for the first round.

Remind me again was Baba any good and would he be considered an upgrade over Rafa? I guess if not upgrade then we have some depth.

I reckon maybe Putin confiscated a bunch of Ivan's money.

It's not the sale of key players that concerns me so much but rather our ability to replace them with like for like (or better). And now that our budget is smaller it makes the task even harder. It is what it is.

If it's true we're selling players like Ingason and getting Kedziora I don't hold out much hope the season, let alone qualifying for the group stage of the conference league (which will be difficult enough as it is).

PAOK Today is ok for light entertainment. Obviously don't take anything they have to say regarding transfers seriously. This one was quite funny. Nikos bet on Ingason to score the first goal (jump to about 1:10 on the video). It happens and his reaction made me laugh.

Hello boys. Regarding the angst with not signing any players yet this might shed some light. Essentially he's saying what we all know. It's difficult to attract good players to Greece. They will bide their time and only if/when they can't get a better offer will they consider Greece. The club doesn't want to sign players for the sake of it. Would rather spend a bit more and get quality. It's annoying but I couldn't pick any faults in his statements. The simple truth is if you want to attract good players to a lower rated league you have to pay overs and right now with our budget that just isn't the case. https://www.sport24.gr/football/kyriakos-oi-protaseis-mas-den-deichnoyn-paraitisi-o-ivan-savvidis-syntoma-tha-echei-apantisei-me-tis-praxeis-toy.10095613.html Sidenote, what's with this *crazy* talk of selling Ingason. If our entire backline was his quality we would've gone close to the title. He's the only what I would consider top shelf player in the back line. Not easily replaceable at all. I wouldn't entertain any offer under 8 million just because he would be so difficult to replace.

November 6 ... for the 2nd tier competition in Greece. What a joke. And then we wonder why our football is so bad these days compared to the rest of Europe.

OFI deserved a goal. They made enough chances to score 1, possibly 2. But we should have scored 2 or 3. Them is the breaks.