paokarag4

absolutely ^^^^ He has always been a poor right back, it's why olympiakos had to convert him into a DM. To his credit he was/is hard working and forged a pretty solid career for himself given his limited talent. But yes in such as a game having a sub par right back cost us dearly. Not to mention playing our best defensive mid as a winger (Zeca) Plus the things out of our control, Manolas suspension and Donis being injured cost us dearly.

I think we need another midfielder. I would take Wernbloom in a heart beat, although I agree his age is a little concerning. But that's the path we've taken (in most cases) the last 2 seasons at least. Experienced players who need minimal time to adapt and can have an immediate impact. As for Mysta being the no.2 striker, I'm still not sold that's his best position. I think he's best spot is similar to Pelkas, playing as a 10 but not quite a classic no.10 like Biseswar. Regardless if Prijo stays on, with Mysta's injury record I wouldn't feel safe going into the season with just 2 recognized strikers. Defs need to sign someone

I'm interested to see how Lazaros goes at olympiakos, and see if he celebrates harder vs us or AEK if he scores. So far nothing that strikes fear, if we are at our best and manage to sign 1-2 more of our targets then there's no reason we shouldn't be right in the running for the league

I read that the friendly vs Anderlect on Friday will be played without any fans as per the request of the Dutch police. Not sure if something has happened or they were expecting a pretty big turn out. Maybe they don't/were unwilling to sent adequate police numbers to the game.

Here's the official announcement https://www.paokfc.gr/nea/20180621-ston-paok-o-leo-zampa/ As initially reported it's a five year deal.

I too am disappointed we are losing Djalma. A really solid player with great work rate. A physical beast too. But as someone else pointed out we got a really good 2 years out of him and we're not prepared to offer a 31 year old 1Mil a season (unless it's Wernbloom ?) But if this Jaba kid is worth 4-5 mil, you'd have to assume he is a star/has ridiculous potential for us to sell him for 15-20mil one day. I too find it unusual that that we would splash out 5 mil out of the blue for a player. Is this a statement of intent from Savvidis that he wants Champions league qualification/A real sustained run at the title? Hard to know without having seen this kid play, but if this is true then the financial commitment is defs there from Savvidis. (not that i ever doubted his financial commitment to PAOK but this would be taking it to a new level)

many of the paok fan sites making it sound like its basically a done deal because of little Savvidis insta post...

Without knowing both teams too extensively, I feel Basel is the tougher opponent. They beat both Manchester United and Manchester City (all be it a slightly weaker city side) in the last 6-7 months. Don't know if they've lost any players but this will be far from easy. Keep a clean sheet in the first leg at home and it's game on

He worked hard, as did the whole of the Egyptian team and deserved a result but as you said his passing was particularly poor. Egypt no doubt missed Salah, when they would brake they had no conviction or pace. There was a goal or two their to be had against a poor Uruguay had Mo been playing

lol JVC, why do you take Greek football so serious? It's a joke of a league with a rubbish standard of football. You shouldn't care so much about futile things my dude

it wasn't bad, always to nice to see some stuff from the inner sanctum and how players prepare and see a little more of their personalities come out

It seems not all are excited about his move to Arsenal http://www.goal.com/en/news/sokratis-can-help-arsenals-defensive-philosophy-but-is-the-wrong-/69cfgo1lsnls1x9c1ib066rds

Malezas has resigned for the 2018-19 season. Happy to have him on board, always solid when called upon a true professional and clubman

@Bananas I agree in theory. You would think Malezas would be happy to play 4th fiddle as he did so most of this season/his career is winding down. I guess the only issue is Crespo happy to start as the no.3 CB playing when the squad is being rotated. I don't mind Crespo either, defensively he's generally okay. Can make mistakes, especially on the ball at times. Has a little pace as well which is handy. Having those 4 and we are deep in that position full of experience. Will come in handy if we are to compete for the league title/have a run in Europe (make it out of the groups in the Europa league)

Tsitsipas down 2-1 sets against Number 7 seed Theim. Match was postponed due to bad weather. Should be taking to the court in the next half hour or so to complete his match. Let's hope the break has done him some good and he pulls off an upset. Remember he beat Theim just a few weeks ago en route to the Barcelona final.

Khacheridi's signing means the end of one of our centre backs, you would think. Either Crespo or Malezas. Not sure I'm a huge fan of signing 30+ year olds constantly. The positive is they are experienced and match harden. There is obviously no long term future though, or potential to resell and make some $$ Although in Greece this is always a quick turn over of squads anyways. The fact that we could potentially be going into next season with 5-6 of our starting XI the same as they were back in 16-17 is unheard of in these parts! As for Djalma, I'd vote keep him. I know he's going into the last year of his contract and we could lose him for nothing at the end of the season but he's defs a valuable player and brings some physicality to the wing.

Jimenez has left AEK, with Ouzounidis has replaced him. Apparently the issue was $ Not ideal for them to lose their manager and arguably their best player of the season in just a 2 week time frame. Going to be an interesting off season

He had a full season in Belgium as a starter which can't have done him any harm. I'd be happy to keep him and play him as a back-up to Matos and with European football next year (hopefully we make it through to group stage of the Europa league at least) there will be rotation needed. The question is, would Kitsiou be happy to come and start the season as the back-up right back after having had a season as a starter abroad

Pasxalakis linked to Napoli http://www.contra.gr/Columns/contra-epithesi/napoli/apo-ton-karnezh-ston-pasxalakh.5202542.html

Happy to eat humble pie when it comes to Lucescu. Thought he wasn't the right move. Have been proven wrong and happily so. Although I will reiterate the thing I was against, and still am is instability. Razvan came in and had a great season despite coming in so late, credit to him. If we can hang onto our core and a with few more signings we should be starting as favourites to win the league/having a run in Europe.

Vieirinha calling Simoes out for joking about the "ti einai auto re" when AEK was celebrating their title Gotta say i was surprised that Simoes, a countrymen of Vieirinha would do that. Regardless good to hear our captain speak so well after the final and you can hear is passion. Really impressed with his Greek too, I knew he spoke it but to be able to do a press conference with no help at all is pretty impressive. Bravo arxyge

After the weekend we are a decent chance to be seeded in the second qualifying round of the Champions league and thus avoid Basel and Ajax. We just need Basaksehir to hold onto to 2nd place in the Turkey with one game to go. Although after a quick look at the Uefa coefficient it seems Galatasary and Fenerbache are both ranked below us. So even if they end up 2nd we'd still be seeded. Besiktas are the ones who would bump us out of the seeded group. In the Czech league as long as Plzen don't implode and blow their 7 point lead with 2 games to play (2nd has a game in hand so still mathematically possible) and Sparta Prague don't pull a miracle off and end up second (whom they are currently 4 points behind having played a game more) then there shouldn't be any worry of any team from the Czech Republic knocking us out of the seeded teams.

1000% Deserved victory today, by far the better team Great to win back to back and this one without any controversy around the goals makes it sweeter. This is how titles should be decided on the pitch without refs/other external forces playing a role. Mpravo re paokara, to axiszame

Could've been a couple of goals up. Very wasteful. We've played well though, not to much change yet. Shakhov for Canas maybe he keeps giving the ball away cheaply The yellows are indeed worrying dutch eagle