paokarag4

ggooooaaaaaal mitro!!!!!!!!

very good half. Defensive rock solid. Sokratis and Manola have been very good. Kept Belgium to just 3 attempts, only one of which was on target. Samaris, taxi and tzavella all guilty of giving the ball away at times which has left us a little open. Only really disappointing thing is the few times we have gone into their half and into a decent attacking position we have been wasteful, bad touches/passes and the Belgians are off again. But hey we didn't go to Brussels to score! No doubt they will come out firing in the 2nd half so we'll have to keep it extremely tight and look for any chance to break

couple of time in the first 5 mins we have pressed them high up the pitch and won the ball back in dangerous positions. Nothing has come of it, but good to see us putting some pressure high up the pitch and making it tough for them to build from the back

no doubt taxi's ability to play a long ball is part of the reason he is starting

No Hazard and no De Bruyne is a big obvious plus for us. But they still have incredible depth in the attacking 3rd. Mirallas, Mertens, Carrasco; 2 of those 3 to start still looks pretty good. Add nainggolan, witsel most likely dembele and that midfield is miles ahead of ours. We all know that we are gonna play defensive and need to have a very good defensive game, Kapino (if he gets the nod) will need to have a big game. As I said earlier we are gonna need someone with pace to support Mitro and Fortounis when we do get a chance to break. Someone who is a direct runner and will be dangerous in space. Looking at our squad Gianniota is the only one that really fills that description. So for me, he has to start. (Manthati might also fit this role but no way he gets a start) Sucks the game isn't on TV for us in Australia, ESPN is showing portugal-Hungary and France-Luxembourg instead -.-

gonna be tough (was gonna be tough regardless) Pana always give us a hard time. The first leg will take place just a few days after we play them in the league at Toumba

so he literally grabbed his balls? didnt pull them or lil dimitri out? just grabbed them? seems like a harsh red

pelkas sent off? what for? LOL really grabbing his balls?

GOOOAAAAAALLLLL!!! At the death!!! Pelkas!!!!

another dokari in the 90th min.....

panionios down to 10

by the sounds of it we are peppering there goal, we just can't score we had a dokari earlier with Bisewar who sounds like he's been involved in everything in the first 15 of the 2nd half

thanks blackhawk

so no working links, lovely. can anyone recommend a radio station that i can listen to?

bianconero isnt working for me, which is annoying

Really hope the injury isnt connected to his previous one. If its the same shoulder it could mean problems for him and us. Hopefully he recovers fully and there is no further issues but I have a bad feeling he is going to have issues with it. The fall didnt even look bad, he must just have landed awkwardly on it It's also a blow to our season, I can't see Klaus or Kolouri providing the goals we need to make the cup final and win the playoffs. I more than happy to be proven wrong though

Nice to see Manthati/Androutso/siopis get a call up. Doubt we'll see any of them in action, perhaps manthati if we are chasing a goal. Fingers crossed Kapino gets the Besiktas and PAO game under his belt leading into this one. Glykos has been shaky over the last month. Not saying that Kapino is a superstar but I would take him over Glyko. Surely we won't see a midfield of Maniati/Tzioli/Zeca?

Glykos starting is kind like a box of chocolates, you never know what your going to get. What we will probably get is a bunch of stunning saves to keep us in the game followed by him flapping at a cross/corner and costing us a goal and any hope of a result. So I think thats equivalent to getting a choc-strawberry out of the box?

Another goal for him and an assist in a 4-0 win that sends Benfica back to the top of the Portugese league The man is on fire!!

This is Ivic's first senior coaching gig. I think all in all he's done a good job. Has he made mistakes? Absolutely, but on the whole he has done well. Won the play-offs last season, got us into the round of 32 in the Europa league and we are on track in the cup and there is no reason we shouldn't win the play-offs this season again. He is learning, I truly believe he isnt a coach (at this stage anyway) who's ego is too big and isn't willing to learn and change things. He's proven this (5 at the back in the cup v panotoliko/away vs pas) but as I say he has also made errors. 5 at the back vs Schalke was in hindsight a mistake. Starting Crespo at left back last night vs AEK was a mistake. He is a young coach who has a done a pretty good job if you ask me. He's learning, is he the one to take us to promised land? I don't know, but he has certainly earned at least another season regardless of what happens from here on till the end of the season. The ever revolving door of coaches that has been our club over the last 5-6 years has given us no chance at success. We need stability, players need it.

For me both penalties were soft. still an incredible comeback but some of the gloss has to be taken off because of the officiating

Great win! Always nice to get one over the gavs Frustrating to think where we'd be had we not dropped the points against Iraklis and Xanthi over the last few weeks, let alone the Atromitos game amongst others. But thats football you can pin point 40 moments in a season that cost you. Hope Panionios manage to beat AEK tomorrow and keep some sort of pressure on Olympiako, but its really hard to see them losing it from here. Prijovic is looking good, someone to simply put the ball in the net, the man has been a good sent! Keep it up megale

gonna take a big performance to get a result. Defence is going to need to be flawless and karnezi is going to have to produce a few big saves. very tough to see us getting something out of this one but im not completely pessimistic like Sheriff. One of the issues will be when we do win the ball we need to counter with some purpose and give the Belgians something to think about as well as relieving some pressure from our defence. The issue is short of Fortouni I don't think we really have anyone who can be damaging on the counter. Well no one that will get the start anyway. I wonder if lazaro would be in contention for a call-up given his recent spike in form?

Only saw the first half but yes you can see from watching the game it was a back 3, with Kitsiou and Mysta playing us wingbacks going up and back. Infact the goal we copped was because mysta was initially out of position and then was slow to react to the play just before Schopf was played in to score. That's why the Schopf was in so much space, mysta was out of position, dont really blame him its not his nautral position that stuff is gonna happen, unfortunately for us it resulted in a goal. Even though IMO after seeing it again, we should have had a penalty moments before there goal. I thought it was a foul on mysta...

Disappointing result. Given the form we have been i think we were all expecting us to put up a fight and maybe come away with a draw. Once we started so brightly, we all thought it was possible to even sneak away with a win. Just one of those days, we did not deserve to loss 3-0. I think a 0-1 loss would have been the fair result, as other have said, Schalke was nothing special. A couple of half chances in those first 20mins (Mysta's through ball to Leovac that Leovac couldn't control, another shooting opportunity Leovac had after a mysta pass again) and of course Matos chance. The reason why i feel most let down is that I think this is one of the only games where Ivic may have got it wrong. I completely understand him playing a 3-5-2 and trying to take a 0-0 to Germany, infact I advocated the importance of a clean sheet before the game. But we have played 3-5-2 against weaker teams and on heavy pitches (Cup vs panotoliko and vs pas away) this was a different beast all together. Ok so he starts with a 3-5-2 thats fine. You go one down from a mixture of maybe the keeper should have done a bit better/defence slow to react/unlucky. At the point you need to score, you need to go to Germany with a 1-1 at least. A change in formation should have happened at half time. I think another mistake was not starting pedro henrique a few of us on here had discussed that he could be the key, quick, good dribbler someone who we really could have used... It's all good and well to say this now, who knows maybe switching to a 4-3-3 wouldn't have helped, but had we changed it up and still lost 3-0, I know I would feel better knowing we threw the kitchen sink at them and did all we could to get the tie back in our favour. Rather than a lacklusture 2nd half where the conceding of goals felt inevitable. Bad day we move on, important we bounce back with a good win against Veria because I have seen this show too many times before over the last 3-4 years, where one bad loss sends our season into a downward spiral and its the beginning of the end of our coach. I don't think that will happen this time around but we must win our next 2 league games no questions asked.