PAOK v. PANATHINAIKOS

[pao123]

i would hardly say playing aek at home is an easy win...i think to say so is ridiculous...it is a derby and those are always unpredictable...remember that aek beat olympaikos away this year too..despite their difficult season aek have a decent squad and are good enough to tie or beat paok even at toumba...paok also have kavala in the second to last week and i guarentee that will be tough too as kavala will fight hard to make the playoffs..aris will fight to get back at paok for the drubbling they took at toumba..

lets get real..its possible that we may lose points but giannena and atromitos away is nothing for us to be afraid of...panionios may be tough but we are panathinaikos...they are afraid of us...the only away game i have doubts about is asteras, who are a dangerous team...despite them being below atromitos in the league, i believe they have a better team..it seems like you are assuming away games are not as winnable as home but let me remind you our away record is almost as good as our home..seriously? giannena and atromitos away are games that we should be skeptical about?

if i had to choose between our schedule and paok i would surely choose ours even if we have to play one more away game..let stop glorifying paok..they have a good squad yes, but they will lose points along the way and we are still +2 up bc we have the best squad in greece...paok dont, we do..sure they may be in better psychology then us, but it will take more than that for them to overturn the 2 points and take the title from pao or oly...we lose a derby and we start bashing our team but the truth is we do have the best squad right now...we control our own fate which is more then we can say for the past so many seasons where we were always staring at olympiakos' back..sure +8 right now would sound fantastic but the fact of the matter is that we are +2 and should not be looking at anything that happend in the past, our results or other teams...the team should play one game at a time and focus on being 7 out of 7 which is more then feasible with our schedule ahead of us...

i dont think we should be dissatified with our performance vs paok...we should definilt be dissatified with the result but our performance was actually pretty good..im not saying im proud of the team but at least we played a good match...paok were by no means a better side then us..a draw would have been more fair..i think we did well, we showed quality and created chances..more chances then the opposing team..if we played crap and we lost i would say we are in a crisis but the fact that we are playing well and not getting the results (ie aek, aris paok) does not disturb me too much..we played a very similar game with these teams as we did with roma and that was a historic result..if we continue with a similar character, the results will come again...we need to tighten the defense a bit and finish our chances...we unlike other great teams find it difficult to score on half-chances..we need to work on our finishing as a team..

now is NOT the time to lose confidence..now is the time to rise up and show our quality and get RESULTS...

[drakos13]

Euro - we were BETTER. Be honest for once.....That atmosphere was standard derby for any greek club btw. Was expecting more.

They had 2 chances all game. We had several big chances and penetrations into the area.....

Not just Ninis' chance.....Vyntra had the exact same chance too first half.

PAOK was bullied around first half, second half they did largely nothing aside from 2 goals were dropped out of nowhere.

Anyways. PAOK did anything but impress me. They will not win the title this season despite their hysteria to be tied for 2nd.

This wraps up one a totally miserable weekend for PAO given last nights catastrophe in basket.

[PAO_OR_DEATH]

wow, 52, 50, 50 - tighter than a ...... well i'll keep it clean....

did not expect this, to be fair, we should have won this or at least tied, we had the chances, PAOKwere indeed a lucky side to win this match.

I will just say, if people dont like the refs, crowd or quality of play....E P L - they always looking for glory hunters, i hear chelsea and man u want more fans..

I just wan to add, I thought toumba was beautiful tonight, paok's fans really do have an edra and when PAO finally gets their own stadium any team coming to play us will s%$#! their pants 4 hours before kick off!!!!!

i think if milan or man u or barca had to play paok tonight in that stadium they would loose too,

oh well, i had a dream we beait osfp so all is ok atm, we are still in the lead!!!!!!!

off to bet on the dogs ar ar ar aroooooo!!!!!

[NYPAO13]

here's my summary... i didnt think it was possible, but our defence sucked even more..

By the way, Seitaridis is collecting a paycheck for getting splinters on his a$$

[PAO_OR_DEATH]

Who's Seitaridis???

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooe

[cyberfish]

ha ha, Seitaridis has been perpetually injured.

Someone help me here, but I don't understand the "we were better" argument. All I see is that our team has been chocking majorly for over a month. I can understand one game when we get "unlucky" and didn't win even though we were better but this is becoming a pattern. Even if we didn't deserve to lose yesterday, we didn't deserve to win either.

Besides, being better going forward has to be balanced with "being better" on defense as well. Our defense was not better than PAOK's and our offense scored less than they did. We lost the second game in a row. It's not luck.

[pao123]

ha ha, Seitaridis has been perpetually injured.

Someone help me here, but I don't understand the "we were better" argument. All I see is that our team has been chocking majorly for over a month. I can understand one game when we get "unlucky" and didn't win even though we were better but this is becoming a pattern. Even if we didn't deserve to lose yesterday, we didn't deserve to win either.

Besides, being better going forward has to be balanced with "being better" on defense as well. Our defense was not better than PAOK's and our offense scored less than they did. We lost the second game in a row. It's not luck.

in the match vs kavala we clearly were very poor..our play was bad...vs paok aris and aek our play was good and we didnt get the result...sometimes its not lucky or unlucky, sometimes these things just happen.

not trying to compare arsenal with panathinaikos but they suffer similarly to us...sometime they play majestically and still lose points..sure overall we need to win the title but playing good football to me matters and gives us hope...if we played vs paok like we did vs kavala our conversations here would be a lot different...but the facts are we played a good match and just simply lost...i think we showed better football overall then paok, i think a draw would have been a more fair result..we played the ball with ease, moved up and down the field well and created more chances then paok...they had trouble moving the ball and created less chances then us...we missed our chances and they won the game off of a brain fart from our defense...in all the game i would only say paok put serious pressure on our defense for maybe a total of 10-15 minutes...

[athinaios]

It begins to worry me that the team can't win the games it shows up to play. We lost to gavroi because we didn't play. But, there've been many times the team outperformed the opponents and didn't win. There's a problem right there.

Honestly, I thought the game against PAOK could have gone either way or a tie. Would we be saying anything different today? I don't think so.

There are 7 games left. We can win 6 of them and we'll be the champions provided we don't lose to Oly. We control our future. If we choke, I'll be upset but I'll know it's our fault. I believe we have the ability to win all 7 too.

[cyberfish]

Well, in my book, "playing well" means we are superior in all facets of the game and most importantly we can take what we want from any given game in Greece.

While many fans get dazzled with our ball movement which is really good at times down the wing (on the right side especially when Salpigidis plays well), I also see our defensive lapses alonside the countless lobs from defense to find Cisse. I don't have the heart to watch the game again but I bet I could count at least twenty times we just kicked the ball forward with a prayer.

PAOK created five "clean" shots from within the box on Sunday. They scored two goals. (Look at my enumerations of chances in the previous page). We similarly had five clean chances and we scored once. Why were we "better"? Maybe "prettier" is more accurate.

Throwing in an extra attacker at the expense of defense is not "playing well". The reason we have not beat any team that lingers above mid-table is not only a matter of bad luck. It's a matter of bad mechanics on the pitch.

Don't take this as attack on Nioblias. I would say the same about any coach that did the same. I am on the record as being a fan of the 2-DM formation because it gives balance.

The way we play we neutralize our own advantages. We have one of the league's best DMs (Katsouranis) and we play him mostly as an AM where he is mediocre. We have one of the league's best AMs (Karagounis) and we pull him deep to bring the ball out of defense (where he is admittedly good but not as deadly as he is when he lingers in and around the box from the left.

We throw numbers forward to help us move the ball but we leave our defense wide open when the whole world knows that they will lose one of the three one v ones and will cost us the game.

I am sorry to point this out. Maybe you can change my mind by convincing me with some examples. HOW do we "play better" when the other team has more control of the game (PAOK had 60% possession by the time they scored) and creates about the same chances as we do and scores more goals than we do? What kind of "better" is that? Did Milan play better when we beat them? For now, it looks like we have become like Aris. Everyone loves to talk about how well they play, but they are very limited in what they can do. This team reminds me of the Malezani team exactly.

I hope Nioblias finds a solution soon because we are running out of room to be dropping points.

I am from the old school. I think PAOK can run the table because they play all their games in northern Greece. Yes, I do suspect foul play. That's Greek football. They can easily go 7 for 7 and since they have a chance for the title, I suspect even Aris will make way. I hope I am wrong, but that's my fear.

To win this title we need to beat Olympiakos for sure and beat everyone else along the way. I am rattled at the worst showing of PAO form in a long time and I am glad you guys are so cool and happy.

[adonis]

cyber i am not a fan of kara on the left and in fact im not sure where his best position is in our team. I suspect its just behind cisse where he can receive balls with either his back to goal and turn and run and either shoot or lay it off or pass into space for cisse.

i am a big fan of playing very wide in offence. which is why i like the idea of havng right footed player on the right, and which is why im happy when salpi is there and plays well there.

but also i like to see a similar thing on the left, for me leto has been inconsistent. sure he looked lively against paok bc he kept receiving the ball, always wanting to run at players and shoot but it just never worked out for him. this is where we lack depth on the left bc aside from leto we have no left footed direct replacement for him.

one of the biggest mistakes (if not equal to the mistake of defence) would have to be letting ivantschitz go. im sure if we had ivan we would of had an extra dimension to our attack and also would help us out in games such as aek aris kavala and paok where we have struggled to convert and/or create.

katsou at AM does not work - he had a great couple of games at the start of the season were he bagged a few goals and we all thought he was great but he has just faded since.

would it be a stupid idea to just try him at CB to help our defence.

also, in the last couple of games why dont we ever throw on an extra striker and play with a clean 4-4-2? i feel if we had kept leto on the left, put ninis on for katsou and moved him on the right and kept kara and simao in the middle and salpi up front with cisse after the 1-1 at paok we prolly could of done something.

but of course we must play with 3 in the middle to protect the defence.

i know im getting ahead of myself but wat do u think of the following:

1. coaching for next season?

2. will cisse stay next season?

3. is salpi the wayne rooney of pao LOL?

[cyberfish]

Ha ha, Salpi will never be wayne rooney. He is already in Paok's fans black list, he is too sensitive to make PAO fans mad at him. Half of Greece will be heckling him wherever he goes :bangin: He will probably go somewhere abroad or he will return to PAOK and I suspect he is already signed the way he acts and plays.

As for coaching. If we go 7 for 7 and beat Olympiakos Nioblias should keep the post. It's unfair he was thrown in in the middle of the season. With a couple of better defenders and a little extra experience he can be good. Like he said "I am a new coach and I am learning" (I just hate sitting through his classes though :LOL:

If we lose this title he will be thrown to the dogs and will end up like Donis in a middle of the pack team in a couple of years. Maybe OFI, but that's way off to the future.

Cisse is not going anywhere. He is signed to a multi-year contract and no team will pay enough to make PAO think about selling him. Now if he gets unhappy for some reason and insists he wants to go it would be a different story. But he seems happy here and he already made this team HIS team. I loved his determination in the game with PAOK. He looked like a mad dog.

It's fun to think of the future but first we have to take care of business. Let's hope our luck changes beginning with Roma.

I would not mind going to the Europa league 16 and maybe the 8. I think it would be great, especially if we win the Superleague and the cup along the way. We just have to get a little more discipline in our game and plug these defensive holes before opponents sneak into them.

[adonis]

yah but salpi is same type of player as rooney in that he is sacrificed to have to play on the right to accomodate cisse up front (like rooney last season with ronaldo)

and there both not the most skillful of players but give it all, possess a good shot, like to run back and chase and defend

obviously rooney is alot more advanced but there of the same mould in my opinion

lol

the reference wasnt whether salpi will be a club man and stay with pao for life as rooney appears to be doing with utd

with cisse im just not sure he will re think his career if we dont win the league this year, i too saw him on sunday give everything and get really pissed off when things werent going his way but theres two ways we can look at it a) he loves the team heaps and hes just as pissed as we are the fans when things arent going pao's way B) he thinks the rest of team is hopeless and gets pissed off with crap service he gets

anyways im just making convo

[athinaios]

To win this title we need to beat Olympiakos for sure and beat everyone else along the way. I am rattled at the worst showing of PAO form in a long time and I am glad you guys are so cool and happy.

I wouldn't say "we" are cool and happy. I can only speak of myself... I'm old enough to know/remember that this drought in the last decade has been the longest. For most of those years, PAO was out of contention very early on, sometimes in December!

Am I happy? Well, yes since PAO is still pursuing 3 goals. No, because a proper team would have already been up by 12 points (like Oly did several times in the past) given the state of the Greek league. We should have finished the job already.

On the other hand, I love football. I like the excitement. It will be sweeter to win it by beating gavroi this season. The devilish side of me says this is the best way to win it. Make the others think they have a chance but lose it in the end. Frustrating.

But, I admit, I'm not 100% confident PAO won't choke in the next 7 games.

What happens if PAO & PAOK finish with equal points?

Though I'm willing to bet now that PAOK will not win this one.

[Euro2004]

ha ha, Seitaridis has been perpetually injured.

Someone help me here, but I don't understand the "we were better" argument. All I see is that our team has been chocking majorly for over a month. I can understand one game when we get "unlucky" and didn't win even though we were better but this is becoming a pattern. Even if we didn't deserve to lose yesterday, we didn't deserve to win either.

Besides, being better going forward has to be balanced with "being better" on defense as well. Our defense was not better than PAOK's and our offense scored less than they did. We lost the second game in a row. It's not luck.

I think it's becoming evident that we agree on so much and I love reading your posts. If one team creates 5 chances and concedes 2 chances, and the 2nd team creates 7 chances but concedes 6 chances then the first team is more effective. That's all that counts. As you pointed out in your earlier post, two of our big opportunities came after they were 2-1 up and we were trying to protect what we had. A draw would have been fair, but champions make their own luck. If it happens once then chalk it up to bad luck but if it happens consistently then there's a big problem that hasn't been addressed.

The only thing I don't agree with is the idea that Aris may give the game against PAOK. Let's not forget it's a derby and PAOK battered them at Toumba. The fans won't allow for that. Also PAOK have 2 league titles if i'm not mistaken and Aris have 3. I don't think they'd give up that bragging right simply because of the fact that PAOK is also from Northern Greece

pao123: Comparing us to Arsenal is interesting, because they too lose points because of the fact that they can't defend effectively. In previous years they weak at dealing with long high balls, this year they're susceptible to being hit on the counter attack. PAO are weak on both of these issues.

The difference between Arsenal and PAO though is that they play fluid football and create numerous openings. They do this becuase of their pace, tempo, movement, work rate and team-work. We don't have these attributes. Some of our players are quick (Leto, Cisse, Salpi) but as a team our tempo is low. The movement and team-work is poor at times too and that forces constant hopeful balls. As for work rate, let's not even get into that! The fact is, yes Arsenal are bound to be a level above us, but play against weaker opposition. There's no excuse for going through a month of poor results.

Overall, we have had some tough games this month. We haven't risen to the challenge but we're still top. If at the beginning of the season I said we'd be 2 points clear at this stage everyone would have been pleased. The team needs to put everything behind them and start fresh. To do this we have to address our problems though, the most immediate being the need to drop Katsouranis.

[cyberfish]

Good question. I looked up the KAP:

If two teams end with equal points:

The team that won most points in the games between them is on top - we split the games so we go to the next tiebraker:

The goal differential in their between games - we both won 2-1 so on to the next tiebraker:

If two teams are on equal points: we play 90' barage in a neutral ground (if three teams are on equal points, then there is a tournament between them). These games will go to extra time and penalties if there is no winner.

http://www.superleaguegreece.net/Downloads...KAP_2009-10.pdf pp 32-33

Who wants to get to that point? And I assume the loser of the barage will have to play playoffs after that. It sounds exciting but we should have this all wrapped up before it gets to this.