Transfer News and Rumors - January 2025

[paokarag4]

Reports from Bulgaria that Despodov is unhappy with his role/playing time and is getting his management to look around for a potential January move. 

We coughed up quite a bit of $ for him and he still has 3 years to run on his contract, so unless another club stumps up a decent amount of cash it maybe hard for him to get out. 

[PaokCT]

As he should be. Dude is a captain of a national team and he mostly comes off the bench for us while we still play Murg / Chalov. I wouldnt be opposed to playing him at CF some games.

[Athens4]

His performances for Bulgaria are much better than those when he wears a PAOK top.

[Blackhawk]

I would not believe any rumors coming from Bulgarian press. They are even worse than the Thessaloniki sports press.

The problem is that he plays the same position as Zivkovic and will have to live with splitting duties with him. 

He had a big offer from Russia during the summer, but he turned it down.

[pash]

Bingo. Both rumors cannot be true.

Also, he split duties last season and didn't seem to have much of a problem. We are hopefully going to play a LOT of games. Everybody will get a ton of appearances, especially with the five subs.

[PAOKSYD]

Seeing a topic of another transfer period causes me anxiety. 

Last 12 transfer periods have all been nothing short of drama, uneventful and overhyped players. 

 

[pash]

Love the idea of us being interested in yet another scrub from a Nordic team.

https://inpaok.com/843817/koitaei-osoutzi-o-paok/

 

HIRE
SOME
GREEKS
YOU
ASSHOLES

[pash]

Fan accounts are saying that Jonny Otto has agreed terms with the club for an extension through the 2025-26 season. Not seeing this on the sites yet, but I can believe it.

[PaokCT]

Looks like our top target for this winter is CDM Benjamin Tahirovic. We may be competing with Celtic, Fiorentina, and Lazio. 

 

https://www.transfermarkt.us/benjamin-tahirovic/profil/spieler/787907

 

 

[Blackhawk]

On 11/25/2024 at 1:06 PM, pash said:

Fan accounts are saying that Jonny Otto has agreed terms with the club for an extension through the 2025-26 season. Not seeing this on the sites yet, but I can believe it.

Otto's contract can be extended automatically for one more season as per his contract with us, but I think the team will try to offer him a new 2-year (at last) deal to keep him happy.

[pash]

Yeah I think the fan accounts jumped the gun on that. InPAOK now saying he wants to return to Spain, so doesn't want to be tied up long-term. Who knows.

[pash]

PaokCT is super upset that nobody liked his post so he's having me post again about it. Be nice to him, friends.

 

 

His stats page: https://www.transfermarkt.us/benjamin-tahirovic/profil/spieler/787907

 

-edit- spelling

Edited December 17, 2024 by pash

[italosPAOK4]

i hope we manage to sign Meite and 1 more quality half

[PaokCT]

Screw Meite tbh. Need to move on from him. Has he even touched the field this season? We need someone who will be able to come in and help right away. Not in March.

[pash]

Even if we got him (a very limited player, I remind you!), he'd now be another year older, with a full year of no actual action. Hard pass.

[paokarag4]

 

9 hours ago, PaokCT said:

Screw Meite tbh. Need to move on from him. Has he even touched the field this season? We need someone who will be able to come in and help right away. Not in March.

Agree we need someone who can come in and impact right away. Tahirovic (if he is signed) doesn't solve this problem, he has only played 125 minutes this season.

Lucescu isn't a manager who allows new signings near the starting 11 at the best of times, let alone when they have had limited minutes.

We probably need 2 CMs, so given Tahirovic is young and highly rated there is no problem with him being one of the 2 potentially signed. But there is no doubt we need a CM that is ready to come in and be a starter immediately. 

[Dutch Eagle]

So, we are interested in Sergio Peña of Malmö FF. He is a Peruvian midfielder (with an Spanish passport), 29 years old and played against us in the qualifiers. 

[pash]

Know very little about him but here's a recent vid of his game vs Galatasaray. Looks pretty good. Nice passing; perhaps a Misic comp?

 

[Dutch Eagle]

And Triantafillos Tsapras is on our radar. He is a 23 yo RB of Levadiakos. 

[pash]

Would be just like us to get rid of one Greek RB who can't get minutes, just to hire another one who will also not get minutes.

PAOK Today reiterating your Malmo news, but also Dejan Ljubicic: https://www.transfermarkt.us/dejan-ljubicic/profil/spieler/287188

 

[pash]

Apparently Sergio Pena's buy-out is only 400k (according to inPAOK). Wildly cheap, if true.

[pash]

Lmao how absurd. I HOPE Panathinaikos gets him and pays out the ass for his middling-at-best services. He'll be fit some time in early 2026, I'd assume.

https://inpaok.com/848493/paok-kai-dyo-akomi-ellinikes-omades-gia-meite/

Of course knowing us, Lucescu will strong arm the administration into overpaying for this guy. He'll point at Bakayoko as what happens when he doesn't get "his guy."

[Bananas]

If you sign Meite now he might be ready for the playoffs.  And that's not guaranteed.  If you consider him a write off for this season but intend on him being ready for next season that's another story.  The other problem is his salary.  We were willing to make him the best paid player in the squad and he rejected the offer.  Fair enough that's his call but you can't exactly pay that amount anymore.  It would have to be considerably lower.  The only thing I can see working is an 18 month loan where a big chunk of his salary is paid for by Porto.

[pash]

Reports earlier were that Pena's old team (Alianza Lima) was itching to get him back.

Meanwhile, metrosport claims that we've nearly got a deal with Malmo, while there is a gap of 100k separating our salary offer / Pena's demand. Seems to be 600 vs 700. Honestly if he ends up starter-caliber, 700k may be a steal. I can't imagine the team from Lima can match our offer (whatever it might actually be).

https://www.metrosport.gr/symfonia-paok-malme-ta-chrimata-poy-chorizoyn-ton-dikefalo-me-ton-penia-1106144

[Blackhawk]

We agreed with Pena for 700K. 

1.5+1 year contract. Now we need to agree with Malmo.