Bananas

3-5-2 makes no sense to me in the GSL. You're playing without wingers and flooding the spine of the pitch. To break down the parked bus of most GSL teams you need to stretch defences and get in behind them. In Europe against stronger opposition, it's a different story. It's played a lot in Italy but those midfielders RUN and get forward to help the attackers. 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 make more sense. 4-3-3 for those games where the opposition midfield can overrun us. That's why Ivic played 4-3-3 in the Cup Final. Because in the previous league game in Athens their midfield completely dominated. I am interested to see how good (or bad) Mauricio is. We know that with Canas or Cimirot they need help sometimes to contain the opposition. If Mauricio can dominate in the middle, we could even see a lineup (against weaker teams) of Mauricio as the 6, El Khaddouri as the 8 and Biseswar as the 10. If Zambrano and Mauricio can lock down the opposition from getting into the box, it'll give the team a whole lot more freedom in attack. As a side note, Koulouris is 5 classes below Prijovic. We need to sign a better striker. I'm sure Michel knows this.

Loaning Henrique was a vlakia. It's not like the club couldn't afford his wages given the wages for the new players just signed. Along with Mak and Campos, he is the only other proper winger we have. Vieirinha can probably play it, but can he still do what he used to be able to ? Did people not see the goal Henrique scored in the EL qualifier ? It was explosive. Or the assist he gave Prijovic against Olympiakos last season ? He is criticized for not defending but that's not him. If you're going to play him you have to left him just be an attacker. He has the x factor where out of nowhere he can make something happen. Would've been nice to have him as an option off the bench.

Assuming we sign Zambrano, we essentially have a new spine. Rey as GK looks like for the first time in over 10 years we've signed a quality keeper. Zambrano as CB should give us some steel in the back line. You have to wonder how good Rubin Kazan's CB's are if they don't even want Zambrano as a backup. Mauricio as CDM and El Khaddouri as the the CM.. Is that correct ? Or was EK bought to be a number 10 sometimes ? Lots of permutations in the middle with Canas, Cimirot, Shakhov, Kace, Biseswar. If Zambrano, Mauricio and El Khaddouri are as good as the hype, the squad is looking good. In theory they are one level up on the best we have now. I think one thing we haven't considered (hopefully Lucescu does) is that Matos played often as a LB in Ukraine. So if the piss poor form of Leovac continues, I'd be inclined to play Vieirinha as RB and Matos as LB. Again, lots of permutations with Vieirinha. This isn't the Bundesliga and there is every chance he could be played further up the pitch, possibly even centrally sometimes. I still wish we hung onto Henrique. If you're the opposition and you have to worry about marking Prijovic, Mak, Vierinha, Matos, Biseswar, El Khaddouri and then you see Henrique warming up on the bench, you'd be thinking ... give me a break.

Tzandaris has signed for PAO. Apparently this signing was accompanied with little fan fare. Hopefully the kid gets some game time and gets back to at least something of what he was at PAOK. I still can't believe he left us for Olympiacos when you consider the fact that with us he was guaranteed lots of game time (at the time he was a starter most weeks). It's decisions like this that ruin careers. Ego is not a dirty word...

Ouch that hurts.

God damn Matos has a good header on him. Honestly, he'd scored a lot more goals than most in the PAOK squad.

Because his finishing is so good, ha ha.

If we get Zambrano then we're really just lacking a proper backup striker for Prijovic.

We haven't found out his wages yet. I'm sure for the wages he's on I'll expect 10+ goals and 10+ assists per season.

Don't you just love the last few days of the transfer period ? If only the club showed this much dedication to qualifying for the EL.

I'd take Stafylidis over Vieirinha any day. Anyhow, let's see how Vieirinha goes. If it were up to me I wouldn't have him at the club. Go go go Vieirinha, prove me wrong.

I have become a Zen Master because of the many years of frustration. I agree we have an opportunity this year. The squad has the talent. Not sure if they have the drive. Ultimately, at least in my mind, it comes down to the manager. What we need is a manager that can get the best out of the players. I believe that deep down (and the players would never admit this of course) a lot of the players in our squad just accept defeat too easily. If Lucescu can somehow change this mind set, we are a chance. The truth is we haven't had a good manager in a long time. Santos was good. Very good actually. And I really liked Boloni. But in the Savvidis era the best we've had is Ivic and that's saying something as his only experience was as an U20's coach. But what he lacked in tactics and experience he made up for with good man management of the squad. Still though, Ivic wasn't really ready for PAOK. In an ideal world Ivic should've been an Assistant for a couple more years before stepping up. Even Lucescu is an unknown quantity. He's proven he can work well with a small team and make them competitive and hard to beat. But it's a whole other thing to be at PAOK. Does he know how to set up a team when you're expected to win ? Will the players listen to him ? Or will they just nod their heads and think "A re vlaka, I make 4 times more money than you and I'm going to screw my beautiful girl tonight". We will see.

Agree Yiankos. Our priority should have been a quality CB better than both Varela and Cresp. With Malezas and Poungouras as well we'd be good. Also what happens when Prijovic is rested, injured or just out of form ? But no, let's put all our effort into getting Vieirinha.

Ha ha, everyone has an opinion. Pelkas actually came back from Portugal a much better player. I believe when he was loaned PAOK had every intention of selling him but when he came back Tudor said that he was impressed with him. Both Pelkas and Kitsiou, ultimately, are just squad players. You wouldn't want Kitsiou playing RB for the entire season or Pelkas playing as the CAM either. They are not good enough to be in the best 11. At least not now anyway and I don't see it changing in the future. Ultimately, we want the backup players to be very close in quality to the best 11. But how can you compare Kitsiou to Matos or Pelkas to Biseswar ? As for Crespo, ti sou ekane re Yiankos, ha ha ? Last season I think he was our most consistent defender by a long shot. This season we can't comment as the whole squad has been rubbish.

Regardless of whether Kitsiou has improved or not, he's the only fit back up for Matos. From the moment he was loaned out, the club should've told Stoogeovic to get Konstantinidis fit and ready to at the very least provide a rotation option. Instead, Konstantinidis has barely played even in the practice games. I hope that Kitsiou and Charisis do a "Pelkas" and come back revitalized and changed as players. Similar to what happened to Pelkas when he went on loan to Portugal. Charisis has the potential to be much better, but there are times when he's lost in the middle and doesn't know how to get back into the game. Hopefully lots of game time will help.

Is this an imposter ? The kozi I know is not normally this positive! Regarding the team I think it all comes down to two factors. Firstly, the quality of the two midfield signings El Khadouri and Mauricio. If these two guys really are a step up from what we have, then we may actually have a proper midfield. Too often our team looks like it has defence and forwards with nothing in the middle. The second issue is quality/depth of our defence, which I believe is insufficient. Our first line of defence of Matos, Varela, Crespo, Leovac is good enough for the GSL, but the back up players I'm not so sure.

Loaning Kitsiou was a big vlakia. Charisis not so much as he wouldn't have got much game time.

You would like to think there is some sort of medium to long term plan to increase the revenue of the club outside of Savvidis putting in money each season. That is unsustainable. If he needs to put in say 10 million each season, how long can that go on for ? The whole idea is that he puts money in to make the team sustainable on it's own and then it can take care of itself. If Savvidis plan was to get CL money then that is a silly gamble. Even if we somehow got it one year, you can't rely on it. The loss of EL monies and half the season with no fans will hurt this year and Savvidis no doubt will have to pour money in to cover it. But moving forward the wages and structure in the club should be based around revenue that can be relied upon. Transfers are another matter as in theory you can try and sell to buy, but the wages themselves (which have increased massively in the last 2 seasons) need to be sustainable.

@jvc, stop talking about Olympiakos. They are in the stratosphere and we are rolling around in the dirt. They collect 20+ million most seasons from the CL. They sell players for 10 million that we would struggle to sell for 1/4 of that. We get on a roll of 3 wins and think we are something special. Seriously, we are comparing an F1 to a Zastava.

Regarding Vieirinha, malista, sothikame tora. Come play for the "fanela" my man. I know you love the club so much, that's why you've waited so long to come to the club. You could've come earlier in the season but that would make sense. I can't believe we're even entertaining this. As for Henrique, after this episode do we expect him to play for the "fanela" ? The whole point of buying him and Warda was to increase depth in the wing positions. He's still a good option off the bench and for rotation. He's also a good impact player. Sell him, fine, if we need the money as now we have Mak, but to sell him for Vieringa, good lord.

The financial hole is due to Financial Fair Play requirements. Savvidis can't just pour money in. It somehow needs to be "legitimate". I believe if he pours money in it either needs to show on the books as a loan or he needs to increase his share allocation. At least, that's my understanding of it.

Agree about the CB i.e. we should only get one if he's clearly better than Crespo/Varela. As for Mauricio, what sort of a player is he ? I'm not even sure how he'll be used in the team. El Khaddouri sounds like he'll be a number 8, so I imagine he will be rotated with Shakhov who seems to be out of sorts so far this season. We still need a solid number 6 to rotate with Canas. Someone who can really sweep in the middle and do the dirty work. Only Canas, when he's in form, does it properly. Cimirot is hit and miss in the role, so some backup there would be good. I'd give my left nut (figuratively speaking) for a Garcia type player who can just stamp his presence on a game.

Thanks bro xxx ooo ;) I hope Lucescu can get the fitness issue sorted out asap. He has 2 weeks, which sounds like it's not enough, but it's a start and gives him some time to at least get cracking on it. I find it incredulous that for a squad of professionals that is paid quite well, that such a situation was allowed to develop. I mean, it's not their fault, they just follow what the manager says, but it's football 101 to have your players fit. Talent you can't really teach. Tactics and decision making you can teach depending on the player. But fitness, that's easy. It's unforgivable to not have your players fit for the beginning of the season, doubly, no triply so, when you know you have life and death EL qualifiers. As for Lucescu, we will see what he is made of this season. I'm not sold on him in the way same way I wasn't sold on Ivic last season. Both were/are unknown quantities. We know what he achieved with Xanthi but their goals and the pressure is different for Xanthi and different for us. It's one thing when your goal is to be "hard to beat" and another when you are trying to play positively.

I know that patata. That's why I made my statement so lame, hoping you would expand on your "team needs a lot of work" statement.

I read we had 60% possession and 21 attempts on goal whereas Kerkyra had 4 attempts on goal. What more do you want ?!