Bananas

kassiesa has been around a long time - his website is far better than UEFA's ha ha.

Thanks for episode #23 guys. As always much appreciated.

The rumours were pointing to this for a while now. It is overall a logical decision and I think a good one. I guess whatever problems Lucescu had with Savvidis son have been smoothed over and the club has realised it's probably best to just let Lucescu run the team. Realistically I can't think of a better candidate even though it's all been a fiasco in how it's played out. Regarding the situation for Garcia, it sucks but he needs to look at the big picture. Lucescu *is* a better coach currently. Garcia still needs experience (which he has gotten a lot of this season) and to get his licenses. His best bet would be to coach the B team or a team say like Xanthi for few seasons, do the hard yards and then I think he'll be ready. Who knows, he still might be our coach one day.

Nice analysis pash. Agree with the sells, especially Tzolis. His value is dropping by the day. Three months ago 15 million seemed possible now we'd be struggling for 10 million. I am ok with selling Swiderski if we can sign Krmencik who he is an animal. We don't want a situation where we don't have both. El Kaddouri - I would keep if he signed for a reduced wage. He had arguably his best season for us in terms of consistency and stepped up when required. Still, his wage is too high for my liking. I'm sure will shop around and if he can't find anything better will then consider staying with us. GK - Paschalakis really improved in the last couple of months and although he really was a superman in the Cup Final I still think we need better. Upgrading the GK would be a "nice to have" if it can be done. Varela/Crespo - we have extracted what we can out of these two legends. Can't ask for more really. Let them move in with dignity when the time comes. Champions. Must re-sign Ingason - will be tricky to resign but as you said most critical. Also Zivkovic and to my surprise Warda who has been very good on his (what is it?) 4th go. I think overall we are ok up front. We score enough. A midfielder would be good because if Schwab isn't in form we lack in the middle. The critical area will be defence. All of our CB's are ageing (I include Vieirinha in this camp). If we can get a solid CB to link up with Ingason, and Ingason re-signs, it will bode well for the future. Hoping Michailidis and Mihaj come good next season. The absolute priorities for me are getting two full backs (both left and right). Rodrigo is ok and gives it all but he's no Matos and never will be. Baba has been overall excellent. Would be awesome to get him again and someone of similar quality on the other flank. Apparently we have a guy called Kagawa - is he any good ? 😂

Ha ha that's the way. Great result to finish off the season on top of a fairly solid finals campaign. Always nice to add another Kypello to the cabinet. That's 4 in 5 years and one against Olympiacos is doubly good. Couldn't ask for anything more from the boys. They played well in a game that could go either way. The team has definitely regrouped since Garcia change the core formation to a 3-4-3. The off season will be interesting ...

I haven’t watched a game in yonks so I can’t really say what the problem is. Stats for a game can be misleading but stats for a season don’t lie. Our defending (note I didn’t say defence) is obviously our main problem. We have the second best attack in the league and I know we still struggle to score easily and our attacks can be one dimensional but right now that isn’t our main problem. As for why we concede so many and so easily that’s for the team to work out. Is there a lack of pressing ? Are the lines too spaced out ? Is it set pieces ? F*** mate, it shouldn’t be that hard to work it out. But apparently they can’t work it out. We copped 3 today even with 3 in the middle from a PAO team that is (let’s be honest) a pretty bad team. They don’t even try to play ball. What does that say about us ? Getting sucked in week after week against inferior opposition who sit back and then counter. Not sure if the problem is the squad or the manager. The pressure on Garcia will be intense.

Oof forgot about this game and my koumbaro just me a message (he’s a Panathinaikos supporter) teasing me. I checked the stats on livescore ... are they even accurate ? It says they had 3 chances for 3 goals. Can they be that efficient ? That is most Germanic. As for us, the solution is self evident. We need to restrict the opposition to zero goals scoring opportunities. Alternatively we need to create 10x the opportunities they do so we can make up for our poor defence.

The class difference between the players of Spain and Greece is huge. That much should be obvious. Even if we wanted to play an attacking game with more possession the current players are simply not capable of doing it. I would be surprised if they could string 3 or 4 passes together before they succumbed to pressure and turned the ball over. I don't think any manager could have played this game any other way really. Sure you could change the formation and the starting 11 but ultimately you know, no matter what, Spain are going to have lots more chances than Greece and will possess minimum 70% of the ball. You pray for a bit of luck with Spain's finishing and pray for a bit of luck with the few counter attack chances you get. It is what it is. Maybe in a generation ... or three ... Greece might change its football philosophy and produce more technical players but right now we are very far behind. In the late 1990's, early 2000's we had some very good players. They were still not as good as the players from the "big" countries but the gap in class between them wasn't as large as it is today. Greek football has regressed. As to the result, it is a very good one. That point could be critical and gives the players some reward for the efforts.

The coach you would like I think only exists in video games. A world class manager that can coach in top leagues is not coming to Greece with that the exception of possibly Olympiacos. I’m not saying there isn’t better than Garcia, I’m saying these better managers can’t be convinced to come to PAOK. Add in FFP rules and that’s the nail in the coffin. All of our managers in the past 5 or so years with the exception of Huub Stevens who was a has been have all been coaches who never coached a “big” team. It so happened Lucescu worked out. Ivic was looking good there but politics got in the way. Now Garcia it is. I am not convinced the problem is not the squad. Across every line we are weaker compared to 2 years ago. Matos > Rodrigo by a lot. Varela is half the player he was, if that. Same for Vieirinha. Crespo is honest but again not as good. Canas, Shakhov, Mauricio much better midfield than today. No wingers in the squad. At least proper wingers. Seriously not one guy can take on the flank and beat it. No number 10. Don’t know what the hell happened to Biseswar and he fell so quickly. No strikers although I don’t mind the new guy, at least he’s aggressive and hungry.

End of the day what manager is out there that can make this current squad win the title ? I don’t think even Lucescu could get within 10 points of the title. The squad is lacking on all lines, defence, midfield, attack. It’s not terrible by any means but even one weakness can be exposed and there are small weaknesses all over the place. Lack of concentration in defence, lack of defensive cover in the middle, lack of transition from the middle, lack of creativity, lack of finishing. I think this talk of replacing Garcia is ridiculous. Replace him with who ? Even Lucescu had a budget double what we have now. The team is in a rebuild phase and is constrained financially. I’m not sure much can be done - best we can hope for short term is Garcia produces a few players from the youth that form a core group of players. But we don’t want them to be too good, ridiculous as that sounds - it’s already likely Tzolis is leaving at the end of the year.

Beef Wellington or Kourada sandwich, a conundrum.😀 Hate to suggest it but maybe Ferreira was onto something with playing 3 at the back. We leak so many goals. It’s reminiscent of the team pre Lucescu when the opposition would pass the half way line we’d have heart attacks. The level of all our defenders with the exception of Ingasson has dropped - regardless of the excuses/reasons. If Garcia sticks with 2 in the middle I don’t see this changing with the current squad. Seriously lacking a number 6 who shields the defence and covers ground.

Clear evidence that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

As always when there are hardly any concrete facts, go with Occam’s razor. According to Siabanis “someone” from PAOK tried to bribe him. Siabanis left PAOK on quite bad terms. The club tried in vain to retain his services and in the end he chose to not sign a new contract with PAOK. So in all likelihood, if you were PAOK, ask yourself, would Siabanis be the first or the last player you would try and bribe ? Knowing he has no love for PAOK why would you try and bribe him ? Side note: If I wanted to actually fix a game I’d be speaking to Karypidis and his relative who “lost” the gate takings last year. But hey that’s just me. Back to the point if you wanted to fix the game by bribing Siabanis you would also have to ensure that he actually plays, which he did not. Either way, he will need to come up with some details for his claims. Who, when, how much etc. For all we know it was a prank from some crazy fan. Until actual clear evidence comes out I’m inclined to think Siabanis has been manipulated (in which case he’s an idiot) and has now put himself into some hot water. Not sure how it works in Greece but if you pulled this in a normal country and couldn’t back it up there would be serious consequence.

Forget about the ref calls. Some will go your way some won’t. If you wait for all the right calls each game you’ll be waiting forever. Penalty ? I wouldn’t have paid it. But who cares. If you can score 4 goals you can beat the unlucky calls. But we can’t do that. Struggle to score one let alone two per game. Simply put, not enough firepower. No full backs scoring goals ala Matos/Vieirinha. Lack of goals from midfield ala Mauricio/Shakhov. No striker. No ten. Where will the goals come from ? Can’t rely on Zivkovic and Tzolis cutting in to score every time. Importantly, a lack of “cheap” goals from corners, set pieces. I realise the aforementioned players are now past it and had to be replaced, but the idea is (or should be) to replace them then with equal or better. We have not. Branko useless. How would I have played this game if I was the opposition ? Easy. Give Tzolis and Zivkovic little space and you’re done. The others ? Yeah they might score but I’ll roll the dice. If we had a proper 10 (my beautiful Biseswar is done) we’d be much better. Add in a proper striker and we’re doubly good. Swiderski is all right but not potent enough. Colak ... a conundrum. The team is still unbalanced. No proper RB. CB’s have dropped a level. We have lost our aerial strength and just seem to lack some toughness (hence why we’ve lost so many derbies). Youth being given a go is good but it takes time. Midfield still lacking a proper 6 since letting Canas go. The team of two seasons ago would’ve beat our current PAOK team handily just by showing them the hairs on their chest. I suppose all is not lost. The team is actually playing quite well in terms of general play. But there is definitely lots of work to be done. Just not sure if the squad is good enough or if we require “metagrafes”.

All of a sudden this got all complicated and technical. Filters, pop, mp3, isolation chambers, shields, warp drives. Maybe Boston just needs to get his ear checked. 😄 On a serious note, the audio quality is ... ok. Specifically CT sounds very good. But paokarag4 sounds not so good - kind of like a dodgy skype call. But you can make him out just fine. It’s not as if you can’t make him out. The only episode that was completely dodgy was the first one where I had to adjust the volume all the way up when pg4 spoke and all the way down when CT spoke. That was funny. Moral of the story ? Use someone closer to home and especially don’t use anyone from Australia.

Exactly - the fix is in. So you're stuffed either way. Time to watch another sport - maybe women's tennis ?

@Dutch Eagle how are the Dutch media reporting the game ? Are they making out like PSV were unlucky or just had a "bad" day ? Any praise for PAOK - or is it just a case of they made mistakes ?

+42 Some coaches just over engineer their teams unnecessarily. What they see, I don't know. Keep it simple. Adjust to your opponent if they are clearly superior, likewise if they are clearly inferior. Exploit obvious weaknesses. Be flexible when required. It's not that hard. Ferreira seemed to get it right in Europe with the 3-4-3 we did well but he'd use the same system in the GSL for no valid reason. Maybe he thought the players can't cope with two systems. Really ? I don't know if Garcia got lucky today, time will tell. One thing is for sure, he won't accept crap performances or attitudes from players. He will hit you - literally - and having players fear the manager isn't necessarily a bad thing.

With Garcia one thing is for sure - we will win the title for yellow cards.

Yeah not good. I’d like to know how many injuries have occurred during training. Seems to be too many.

What the heck, when did Garcia learn to speak Greek ? Last time I saw an interview with him he had a translator. I like how he’s ready to punch on, ha ha. https://www.contra.gr/opinions/stauros-karaindros/o-gkarsia-esvise-ton-fereira-san-min-perase-pote-apo-ton-paok.9034980.html

We need Dutch Eagle to lift the Dutch curse. Acquire a peponi, a chicken and the services of the best voodoo practitioner you can find. If you are having trouble, there is a PAOK fan in Zambia that may assist.

Good choice regarding Malezas. One of our boys.

Well this came out of left field. Never could I have imagined any team being interested in wanting to acquire Abel as their manager, let alone a big club like Palmeiras. It’s quite bizarre really. Maybe Savvidis has gangster contacts in Brazil and there is black money being sloshed around offshore accounts. A case of conspiracy theory making more sense than anything else. Regardless, much to my surprise, I’m not that keen on Abel leaving. Yes, he can be inflexible but overall he has the team in a decent state. The squad is quite fit, and we are playing a decent brand of football. It’s not like we are playing terrible and are being outplayed each week. Our problem is obvious to all i.e. lack of firepower up front. We are lacking a killer striker and players that can run at defences. Zifkovic, Tzolis and other attackers are all solid players but don’t have that ability to charge at and rip through defences like say a Mak or Rodrigues could. In the striking department again we are a little lacking. Give us El Arabi and we are winning the title. Let’s see if Colak comes good. The other obvious criticism of Abel is playing three at the back in the GSL. Totally unnecessary for 90% of games in Greece and probably detrimental. I’m sure he has his reasons, I just can’t work out what they are. And now onto Garcia. Again, much to my surprise I’m not that keen on his appointment. Not because I don’t love him, but precisely because I do. Being a manager, especially in the modern era, is a thankless task. It hardly ever ends well and the last thing I want to see is the “legend” of Garcia diminished, or worse, he leaves the club with bad blood. If it can happen with Ivic or Lucescu (thanks for winning us a title after 35 years) it can happen with anyone. I hope I’m very wrong. He’s done an awesome job with the youth team and brought up a couple of hopeful kids (Tzolis, Michailidis) and that’s all I want from a youth coach. I just hope however and whenever his tenure comes to an end it isn’t in typical kafeneio fashion. I guess we’ll soon find out if Garcia is made for first team football. Newsflash, ha ha, I can see it now “where are all the wingers”, “we sold them all because Abel didn’t need them”, “PAOK looking for wingers in next transfer period”. I remember saying a few years ago that all I f**king wanted was for the circus of hiring and firing managers to end and to just have one manager stay for more than a year. Behold, my wish was granted, and Lucescu stayed for two. An eternity by PAOK standards. We have reverted to our mean for the time being.

Soares adequate, hmm, he’s half the player Matos is. Anyway what’s done is done. The way we send off players that served the club well, that’s kafeneio 103. Who knows, maybe he’ll be back in 3 weeks. Deficit ? Do we still have one ? Anyone have some figures.