Asteras Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 I thought the tactics were correct and the way the first half went proves it to be so,kotsolis was hardly tested ,where as their keeper had to make a couple of saves at full stretch. we looked good in the 1st half. zeka ,lagos and koutroubis did well in midfield protecting the defence and not allowing brugge to get in between the lines. ninis looked like a threat all the time and karelis was causing them headaches with his mobility and speed. but it just went horribly wrong in the 2nd half,and this is where anastasiou is at fault,is luke steele our number 1 .yes or no ? was he fit ? I think he was he just played a friendly a couple of days ago,maybe steele saves that first goal and the third maybe he doesn't,we will never know ,kotsolis had no business playing this game if steele was fit which he was,for me I think steele would save the 1st and 3rd goal. I also thought anastasiou panicked at 2-0 by taking koutroubi off and throwing on petric. again the essien transfer has killed us,so much is won and lost in the first month of the season,we should of been firing on all cylinders ,with our marquee player fit ,playing well in the play offs is to little to late. that money should of been spent on attacking players playmakers or wingers,lack of wingers will come back to bite us the backside in the greek league,when we face 2 defensive lines of 4 siting back and playing not to lose. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAOmelbourne Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 It's certainly not a decline! The league this year is stronger, especially with the addition of aek. Creates another big derby and some extra worthy competition. Panathinaikos have added some great players into the squad, we fell short and were out played by a better team. Yeh it sucks, but realistically speaking none of us expected to be in CL. Take some positives from a negative, this is another competitive game under a belt in the pre season, a good assessment of where players are at, and a good chance for anastasiou to tweak the lineup/formation to suit us. You do realise the second goal we copped was a huge deflection and as well a massive kick in the nuts for the team psychologically.. Karelis with a bit more composure could of had a few, I think there was a penalty that could have been given to berg... Some days these come our way, sometimes they don't. Funny thing is, had all those factors played to our advantage, you wouldn't hear one single complaint in these forums about our team. And every one would have the confidence of a person who just racked 3 lines of coke in his nose that we would be able to beat Man U in the following round. Some of you need to picture the game of football in a more realistic sense. I understand it's frustrating seeing mediocre performances for years, especially when we compare ourselves to many other former years. But fact of the matter is, we are who we are! We will qualify for europa and we will be a lot more ready for the qualifying game! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RED SHERIFF Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 this is the 4th or 5th time PAO play v Brugge in Belgium over a 40 year period, and still have not managed to score a goal... so its not really a decline.....more of a poor consistent result... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
val Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 I thought the tactics were correct and the way the first half went proves it to be so,kotsolis was hardly tested ,where as their keeper had to make a couple of saves at full stretch. we looked good in the 1st half. We did look comfortable, but the game-plan is not for 90 min. We always leak goals and today was no different. Did we even prepare for the scenario that we might concede? Because quite frankly it didn?t seem that way. Once we found ourselves trailing, that was it, almost as if the players themselves knew that they didn?t have it in themselves to overturn the result. The over reliance on certain individuals is obvious, certain individuals that had an off night. It?s disappointing because just a week ago, we overturned the result, we changed to a 4-4-2 rombo and the response was positive. It's certainly not a decline! The league this year is stronger, especially with the addition of aek. Creates another big derby and some extra worthy competition. Panathinaikos have added some great players into the squad, we fell short and were out played by a better team. Yeh it sucks, but realistically speaking none of us expected to be in CL. You do realise the second goal we copped was a huge deflection and as well a massive kick in the nuts for the team psychologically.. Karelis with a bit more composure could of had a few, I think there was a penalty that could have been given to berg... Some days these come our way, sometimes they don't. Funny thing is, had all those factors played to our advantage, you wouldn't hear one single complaint in these forums about our team. And every one would have the confidence of a person who just racked 3 lines of coke in his nose that we would be able to beat Man U in the following round. Disagree. AEK is coming from an inferior division, it will take some time to get back to where they were, assuming they are willing to spend. It?s the players that make the difference. The likes of leto, mirallas, vieirinha etc. Regarding our signings, I think the jury is still out on all of them. We were unlucky, no one is denying that but regarding our attacking play, it was slim pickings up front. I don?t feel that we did ourselves justice. Actually I was voicing my concerns after beating brugge in the first leg and a few other were doing the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lefkaditis Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 this is the 4th or 5th time PAO play v Brugge in Belgium over a 40 year period, and still have not managed to score a goal... so its not really a decline.....more of a poor consistent result... Yes but this is the worst result ever. The Brugge teams we played in the 80s and 90s were better than this one, but PAO was also a far better team than this second-rate outfit. Other than Berg, none of the players in today's team would get a game in the PAO teams of the late 80s / early 90s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Man Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 If we take a step back at look at things... it's so early in the season we had one game end of July and the other yesterday beginning of August!!.. we are still 3 weeks out from the start of our season...( realistically the first game of the season is always the ice over the head game) our preparation is still developing!!!! I strongly disagree we have not progressed such judgement this early would be totally foolish!!!!..Only one of our new signings started and was prepared(wemmer)..lod was a used sub in both games!!( very hard to make an impact when your not used to system and rhythm of the team)..Sanchez suspended! essien hurt! thelander hurt! kaltsas left out!.. luke Steele also our number one choice hurt not match fit perhaps if all played a part the result may have had a different outcome.... I feel we will make 2/3 more signings this month and youl see a different panathinaikos come the Europa league!!... as of now that's what we must prove ourselfs in! Have a deep run give it a go! Domestic wise who knows we are always ever so close this year/season we may see the double being completed if we start right and compose ourselves you just never know! have fate!!!! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lefkaditis Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 (edited) @ JVC - Exactly, it's a snowball effect.....heading in the wrong direction. This has the potential to isolate us even more and bring us closer to the leagues of Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, etc, etc, who rarely, if ever, have a team in the CL group stage. All we can hope for is Oly to maintain some sort of standard and perhaps qualify for a CL spot, otherwise the europa league is all we can hope for. At least we might get some points there to add to our coefficient! Hopefully we will be on par with Cyprus, even they seem to be overtaking us.....! Edited August 6, 2015 by Lefkaditis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RED SHERIFF Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 actually Cyprus has gone backwards in the coefficient in the last 2-3 years...(poor start this season too) We definitely need points..but its not panic stations just yet.. The leagues just around us in the coefficient... Austria, Swiss, turkey, Croatia, Czechs have had a disastrous start this season...some have already lost clubs for this season... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lefkaditis Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 I hope things improve, but when the country has no money, the clubs have no money, you slowly work your way DOWNHILL. No money, no hope. It's gradually happened to Italy over the past 10-15 years, they easily had the strongest league in the 80s and early/mid 90s - look at them now. I know it's not good to mention in a PAO forum, but if Greece didn't have Oly/Marinakis and his money, where would Greek football be? Pao were once the "European Team" of Greece, the team all of europe knew, now we're the paupers scrounging for food through the bins..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RED SHERIFF Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 PAO have not been 'that team' for a long time...yes the financial situation is not helping....and yes Oly has collected a fair few points in recent years.. but even in crisis times say since 2009..Aris,PAOK, Asteras have managed to collect a lot of points...the demise of PAO and AEK has caused us to slip no doubt... I would not see the 0-3 in Brugge as the end of greek football....Oly beat anderlecht 0-3 in Brussels 22 months ago... If you go over and look at some of the results throughout europe in the last 14 days...you will be scratching your head....and a better man than me if you made any sense of where countries leagues stand or if they are dipping or going up.,....some really bizarre results. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lefkaditis Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 Yes I agree, we have the fans and the passion, this will always be the case, but we have no money. We are still playing in a stadium that should be classified as heritage, should put bits of it in the Acropolis museum! Some new paint and render here and there, perhaps a few new seats, and we have a brand new home! When is the redevelopment going to start? Probably never. And that real leader will be very difficult to find in this current economic climate. The only thing that can save us, like a lot of the bigger european clubs, is some Arab or Russian with big bucks to come in and "show us the money" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lefkaditis Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 You make some good points. Many on here point to Asteras and Atromitos, and they should be admired, they have given Greece points and have done very well under the circumstances, but........ They are small clubs (Asteras from a smallish regional town), playing in stadiums holding 5-10K. They will always be small teams. The only clubs that can do it for Greece are the Big 2, and perhaps throw in AEK if they get back to where they once were. Paok are a lost cause, unfortunately, promise a lot, deliver nothing. Sometimes you can be clever with your spending, but you need a lot of LUCK as well, and it can only go so far. At the end of the day it's the money that makes the difference. Man City in the 80s/90s was a 2nd division club, relegation/promotion material. Same as Chelsea - rubbish. The middle eastern oil and russian gas made them the teams they are today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
val Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 I agree that the loss is on the players and the coach. My only bitterness with management is the departure of dabizas. Truth be told when you have so little funds, you need to spend well and dabizas had a great eye for talent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAOmelbourne Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 You guys cannot compare the 90s football era to now!!!! We need to move on from a couple of good runs that we had back then! Money wasn't as big of an influence as it is nowadays! Players actually played for the shirt.. As the years progressed, so did the influence of money. And the gap between the Barcelonas and Real Madrids compared to the Panathinaikos' and Brugges also increased... Which is generally why the final 4 of CL year in year out, seems to come as no real suprise! No one is going to invest in a Greek team any time soon, it's a piss poor business decision to do so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giourkas Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 ^ I could be wrong but Didn't he leave for personal reasons (he was involved in a car accident that killed a woman)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
val Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 ^ I could be wrong but Didn't he leave for personal reasons (he was involved in a car accident that killed a woman)? From my understanding, he fell out with alafouzo about last year's recruits. I would imagine freeze knows more on the subject, such as who brought in who. We know for sure that he was behind abeid coming to the club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athinaios Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 When PAO was falling like a rock, with huge deficits, and club & fan morale at its lowest, nobody, nobody of financial means stepped forward to save the club. None of the big fat asses who claim to be fanatic PAO fans. This is the fact. Alafouzos saved the club. He did tons of mistakes but you have to judge him from where the club was to where it is now. Lots of mistakes he made, but you would make similar or worse mistakes if you had taken over, especially with so low budgets, deficits, and when the club owed millions $ to past players. You can fault him for not spending more money. I don't know if he has it. But, in my mind he truly saved the club when no one else wanted to touch PAO with a 10 yard pole. And, it's much harder to be successful when the budget is so low. Has he stopped any big fat cat from investing in the club as Tzigger did? Tzigger was the worst, by far, owner of PAO given his money. The worst drought of titles ever under his tenure. He alienated everyone, and he left the club vulnerable and a second class member of the "super" league. Also, could you please explain to me why Greeks teams are so special? (aside from us being hardcore fans of our favorite club). Give me something that the other teams don't have.... Don't you think money, good management/ownership, and domestic league all play a role? Can you identify what Greek teams have that others don't so they can be more successful? OK, I'll give you one: crazy fans. Good asset. But even though the Panathes overwhelmed the Belgians in the stands (even in Belgium), the bottom line was our team lost 3-0. PS>Nowadays a Greek team can have 40-80% foreign players. I noticed in the last couple seasons, especially gavroi would field 10 or 11 non-Greek players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grkfreezer624 Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 There are probably about 8-10 teams where we will probably have to spit blood to get through. ... Lets focus on one thing at a time. .. get a team in order... and then worry about europe Rome wasnt built in one day... lets just be happy that we have an actual team this year that can be competitive in the SL after 4 yrs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grkfreezer624 Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 If we don't qualify for europe... im 80% certain we will win the league Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doxa Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 .It's hard for Olympiakos to convince players to come No it's not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamiara ole Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 Bring back the Vardinoyiannis family and these 3 years of austerity will be forgotten for ever. We need them now more than ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamiara ole Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 I am sick and tired of waiting for a miracle. Panathinaikos is great than the fiasco the current administration is portraying. We need to change all that. Enough with misery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamiara ole Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 ^ Please buddy enough with the alafouzo misery and bs! If you are content with the current situation and you have aspirations and dreams that do not pass the europa League stage...keep them to yourself! If by any remote chance you want to see this team excell onto the CL...then change your toon! The current administration has set a ceiling to where the team can rise! In case you did not realize or noticed...we are in the 3rd year of the same BS and the team cannot advance to NOWHERE! This CANNOT GO INDEFINATELY! IT NEEDS TO STOP NOW! I do not forsee any improvement in any level! EVERYTHING IS STAGNANT! THE TEAM HAS DIMINISHED TO LEVELS THAT WE HAVE NEVER SEEN! We are the KARPAZOEISPRAKTORES OF any yearly european adventure! They look at us and they are pissing their pants thinking that they would advance with practically no effort! Did you by any chance notice that we need players in every line and many of them? The current roster wouldn't have been allowed to go by Paiania,never mind play on its fields! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lefkaditis Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 With this current team all we can hope for is to **challenge** Oly for the greek title, and perhaps have a shot at the cup. Even if we qualify for the EL groups, I doubt we will go any further. Bottom line is the team is still not good enough. The new signings are unknowns (haven't seen much of Wemmer, apparently he was our worst against Brugge), Essien was signed only because of his name, wonder if he'll even play a game for us? Early signs are that Sanchez is a hothead and too slow.....what's the point, better off playing a young Greek in that position. No use arguing about who runs the club and what decisions they're making. If you don't have the money, you can't be successful. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgelaz Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 My heart felt we would win. My brain knew a defeat was likely. Our win at home was way too scrappy of a win to give me the confidence of winning away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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