paokarag4

Geia sou re Bananas, good to see you posting you need to pop in more often file! As for the draw I think it's comparable to the Midtjylland draw, not the best or the worst. It is doable for sure and man jumping ahead but imagine what it would mean to the club to make the quarter finals of European Competition, even if it's the third tier comp (let's be honest that's about where Greek clubs deserve to be atm)

Calling it now lads, Colak to score a late goal to send this one to extra time! We need to find a way to work through their press, it gave us plenty of problems in the first leg and generally this season we do struggle against teams that press well. Not sure whether Kurtic returning will help, he is prone to an error or 2 on the ball. I can see Lucescu keeping it tight for the first half and then throwing more caution to the wind as the 2nd half wears on. He is not the type of coach to come out all guns blazing from the first minute, I think his approach will be if we get a goal early great. But he's not gonna have us come out throwing numbers forward, at least not in the first 45. Whether you agree or not with that is a matter for a philosophical coaching debate, obviously the earlier we score the easier it will be. IMO I think there's something to be said for pushing early (first 15-20) and then seeing where you are at scoreboard wise. If you've managed to score in that time great! If they have scored on the counter well then you have 70 or so minutes to chase 2 goals.

A perfect hattrick at that! In a 3-2 win to boot! The winner came in 86th minute Well done to him, after a rough time with injuries in his first 6 months he has settled and has looked a lot better over the last month or so. The goals have been coming, he gets to the right spots and had been a little unlucky in previous games. Important win for Celtic too as they now go 3 points clear of Rangers at the top of the league.

I've only caught the 2nd half but Aris is having the better of it. We also have limited options for us coming off the bench in terms of a winger, probably need to freshen up the team a little. It'll either by Taylor or El-Kaddouri shoe horned in there if Lucescu decides to sub out Jaba

Disappointing performance, even if we did slightly improve in the 2nd half(I think Midtjylland fatigued and their lack of matches shone through) we still were not good enough particularly in attack. Their pressing gave us all sorts of problems, and for large stretches we could not move the ball into our half let alone into our attacking third. Biseswar helped in that regard but it wasn't enough. As others have pointed 1-0 is doable, my concern is are we going to be able to build up and create anything with them pressing us and our players seemingly unable to deal with that press. It will be different in Toumba but this performance was very lackluster and after waiting for 5 years for some knock-out European football that's what was dished up? Anyway qualification is still up for grabs, I think we are good for a goal in the 2nd leg. Hopefully there's a 2nd and a nice 2-0 win in regular time.

Looks like capacity limits will be increased to 50% on Saturday, so there will be a decent sized crowd in for this one. Will work in our favour for the return leg against Midtjylland, but will make a tough game that much tougher in this case.

Wasn't able to catch the press-conference, good to hear he handled himself well. Any truth to what I'm reading that Boto basically confirmed Ingason will be re-signed shortly and that it's a done deal?

Game has been rescheduled for Wednesday 2nd of March 8.30pm Greek time

Well it's looking more and more likely to be Poyet. Out of the 2 options I do agree Koller appeared to be the better option, at least on paper. We'll see how he goes, June will be a challenge for him with the 4 nations league matches in 2 weeks.

Ingason will be third addition to the list, he has been fantastic since returning to the starting XI.

I am considering it, just waiting for the schedule to be announced so I can get the right tickets. Although I went to his semi against Medvedev last year where he lost in straight sets, so maybe it's best I stay away this time!

Was not expecting such a dominate performance from him given he is coming off elbow surgery and his form had been patchy leading into the quarters. A really impressive performance and victory, now for Medvedev his old rival. Medvedev owns their head-to-head record 6-2. Tsitsipas beat him at the French Open last year, but I think the clay worked in his favour. It will be tough but you never know, Medvedev was down match point and had to come back from 2 sets down in the quarters to make it this far.

I hope for his sake he recalls Ninis, otherwise he should be sacked on the spot. While we are at I'll be ropable if he doesn't call Tsiartas, Zargorakis, Koudas, Domazos and Mavros.

LMAO IT WORKS

And Sastre will get his debut

Amazing 2nd leg that was. We hammered them chance wise and just couldn't finish. We got a deserved albeit lucky goal from Musli closing doing the keeper (pressing before it was fashionable!) I'll never forget Ivic and Salpi 2 on 1 with the keeper, Ivic plays it across to Salpi who just couldn't reach it to give us a 0-2 lead and probably qualification to the round of 16. Up there with our best European performances in modern times, despite not winning the match.

Wow surprised to see Swiderski heading to the MLS, but agree it's a good bit of business for us. Nice little profit for us and this may fund the Felipe Soares deal who has been rumoured to be coming for 3 million for the last few days. I guess the sale means Colak is here to stay, at least until the end of the season. Unless they plan on brining in another striker but I think that's unlikely, we'll see Akpom/Colak and Oliveira later in the season as he continues his recovery from injury.

@PaokCT I am no host, I am but a humble analyst ? Thank you guys for the wishes!

If Jaba is able to recapture and build on his 18-19 form, then we will have some very good attacking options on the wings with him and Zivkovic. Good signs today, let's see how he goes. Not a great performance, but we take the win and move on to OFI in a few days.

Yeah we are struggling to see this game out, seems our form from the late December matches has carried on until now. On the plus side Jaba has looked positive since he came on, running at and beating defenders.

I guess we should change the footballing laws to say PAOK isn't allowed to win any penalties? Ask him if that would suit him

Olympiakos/Aris/AEK fans are going to be melting down with 2 penalties in the first 30 mins? I think they are both there, the 2nd one just then the Panetolikos defender is a bit unlucky because it hits his chest first but the way his arm comes up and is away from his body you are running the risk.

It is surprising to see Rodrigo in the squad let alone starting. Perhaps Sidcley was one of the many who had COVID and they felt he wasn't ready to start? Potentially the same issue with Vieirinha. I'm calling it now, Colak will come on score

My first pick is pash as assistant manager/head of scouting

Seems we are about to sign Joan Sastre on loan from Mallorca. He is a 24 year old, Spanish right back who has played 7 matches this season in La Liga predominately as a sub.