Transfer Updates

Really not sure where to start this one, but I guess Ill begin with Scocco transfer (though I’m sure most of you have heard by now). Yep, Nacho Scocco is no longer a player of AEK. And I really don’t know what to say about this… literally.

Three seasons he’s been with us and in during those three seasons he has left us with so many great memories: his two goals in the 4-4 Cup Final, his two goals against Oly to give us the win in Karaiskaki, his two goals (one of them being an outrageously beautiful shot, as were most of his goals) against Aris, his two goals against Vaslui, his fantastic shot against Panionios, a number of goals against PAO… some of his goals, a majority of them even, were game winners for us. To be honest, and I’m not simply saying this because he played for AEK, I think he was the best player in the league the past few seasons when he wanted to be. Unbelievable skills and technique, his fair share of assists, beautiful goals, he was a joy to watch. But, again, WHEN HE WANTED TO BE.

I’ve seen many AEK fans on the internet claim he was simply inconsistent as most footballers are. That, however, I cannot agree with. I loved the guy for everything he did for us, but to me, it is a fact that when there were no scouts watching or when the game wasn’t high profile, he simply didn’t show any motivation. There were so many games where he completely disappeared, where he simply refused to put any effort into the match, where he refused to assist his teamates on the pitch. And this is coming from someone who saw him live at every home game for his first two seasons with AEK. His body language for the majority of the matches he played for us suggest that he simply didn’t care about putting effort in that was required of him to help the team.

His off the pitch attitude was not much better at times, with him being extremely difficult to negotiate with whenever it came time to agreeing to new contracts. Fortunately he did agree to a “decent” contract (with a rather low sellout price) however I was never once convinced that a move to one of our rivals was ruled out of his mind.

So, I don’t know what to say about this transfer. I’m confident in saying we will not find a player like him no matter how hard we look (at least nobody within our budget or anything near it). He will not be replaced anytime soon. However, if it was up to me, I’d rather we have the team we had in the 2007-2008 season with Ribo, Zikos, Dellas, Libe, Papastathopoulos and co, a team that worked effectively as a unit, and give up Scocco, than have things the other way around. Obviously, this will never happen, but the point I’m trying to make is there have been better AEK teams before Scocco and there will certainly be better AEK teams after Scocco. Having said that though, after the departure of Djebbour (good riddance), then Blanco, and now Scocco… what attacking creativity will we have? Fine, Libe might be around for another year. But who else? Baha was a joke, and we don’t have one decent striker or attacker who is AEK material. Roger might have a good game occasionally, and Michel was solid though we probably wont even keep him. Scocco was without a doubt our most dangerous weapon, a weapon any superleague defense would fear, and now we have lost him and have no chance of replacing him. I’m not saying AEK will be far worse off without him, but without any immediate plans to boost our attack somewhat, we will only continue heading downhill as we have been for the past few seasons.

Having said that, this transfer was not something management could simply pass off. The nearly three million euros we gained from the transfer will certainly help things financially, at least for the time being.

Anyways, like I said, I don’t know what to say. Sure I would have liked to keep him, but I can’t imagine management passing up any offer near or over three million euros (though I think we deserve much more for him). He did say that if he ever returned to Greece, it would only be for AEK, so who knows what the future will bring… but really, who knows what the future will bring for AEK in general. Will we just end up like our basketball team? Its possible…

As of so far this summer, we have made three singings. A young centreback from Aris who is supposed to be very promising (we’ll see), Kontoes from Panionios (I’m happy with this, always liked him, and he even accepted lower wages at AEK than he was offered at Panionios, which is a nice slap to the face for Panionios and its supporters), and an attacker from Giannina, Salmas (haven’t seen much of him at all, but his goal, a fabulous one with an even better assist, his one of the possible votes for European goal of the season, so vote for it here!)

Decent singings for the future, or as possible bench players, but nothing to get excited about at all. They are Greek however, so they will likely respect the shirt they’re wearing a little more than a foreigner, but still… we need some better signings than this if we want to see an AEK that has a chance of making a difference in the league this season.

To end this post, I’d like to post some Scocco videos. I might have some negative opinions of him at times, but he has left me with some memories that I will simply never forget!

 

Michel signs with AEK, Djebbour signs with Oly!

The signing of Miguel Madera, known more commonly as Michel, has been confirmed by AEK on the club’s site. The deal is a loan deal (the player was previously part of Birmingham’s squad but failed to make many appearances from what I read) with an option to buy. I can’t say I know very much about him, but he’s said some good things about the club and seems to be happy with moving to AEK.

I believe we are still looking at Georgiadis from Panserraikos and Vellios from Iraklis (I heard we had agreed with the player however a deal has not yet been reached between the clubs). However, there is now Italian interest in not only Gentzoglou, but also Manolas! Gentzoglou I could understand selling, assuming the price was right, but I simply could not accept selling Manolas yet. He has been outstanding for us, clearly loves the club, and is the kind of player we need with us at the moment.

Djebbour has also been picked up by Olympiakos it seems! He will remain with them for six months however he could sign for an additional two years at the end of the season. What a disgusting way to end this whole saga… fantastic player no doubt, but with the wrong attitude. I thought we may have seen a different player after he was cut from the team for a few months but it seems such traits in players will forever be present. It really is a shame we could not manage to at least get some money of a transfer.

Panathinaikos 0-2 AEK!

What a sweet, sweet victory for all of us AEK fans today! A 2-0 victory over PAO in their own stadium, with both goals being scored by Libe.

 

The match was a fairly even affair throughout with neither side absolutely dominating possession. The match started with a very low pace with neither team looking to risk too much offensively too early in the game. Things started going PAO’s way the final 15 minutes or so of the first however, when they started playing much more effective football inside our box forcing Saja to be on his toes for a while.

The balance of the match changed however soon after Libe scored in the second half. It seemed all life was taken out of PAO as soon as they went down and while they failed to show any attacking intent we were seeming to venture forward with more comfort. Libe’s second goal to put the result of the match almost beyond doubt came after his free kick rebounded off the back of Leto leaving PAO’s keeper helpless.

Despite PAO controlling things for part of the game they failed to create many clear cut chances and while the same could be said for us, we didn’t manage to capitalize when it counted most.

Saja had a fantastic game (though I can’t think of many recent matches where he didn’t) and did exactly what was needed of him. He was confident in net and didn’t risk much.

Our defense also did it’s job today though played much riskier football than Saja. Fortunately playing it risky rather than safe payed off for us as it meant cutting many PAO chances off before they could develop into anything dangerous. I was quite satisfied with Nasuti really and hes pleased me his past few performances. Dellas also had a pretty solid game and, together with the rest of our defense, made sure PAO had a hard time in front of our net. They did look slightly vulnerable at times however.

Makos had another impressive game for me and did a great job at getting himself involved whenever possible. Did great defensively and also managed to hold the ball up and distribute when he could. I wasn’t as happy with Diop however as I feel he could have contributed a bit more but he used his strength well when needed.

Lagos had a good game and became more active offensively in the second half though Scocco was fairly quiet in this match. He did try his luck on goal a few times, once after a lovely touch by Roger inside the box, but he failed to find the target. Roger had a good game as well but his touch and free kick’s were very well taken this match.

Oh, and by the way, I never got a report up but we also beat Tripolis away over the weekend with a score of 3-0.

Things are looking better for us now than they initially did after the new year with two good away results in the championship, a great position in the Cup, and a good offensive record despite recently cutting Djebbour’s contract short. Now all we can hope for is that we build on our momentum to get ourselves a good position in the playoffs and a Cup victory! A few transfers to boost our squad where needed and we can achieve something decent before the season ends.

Tripolis 0-3 AEK

PAO 0-2 AEK!

Such a fantastic win! And once again I ask myself where we would be this season had we not gotten Libe when we did. Huge part of our offense this season and has given us a boost on the pitch despite his legs slowing down considerably. Also recieved much applause from many PAO supporters.. only a guy like Libe would ever recieve such appreciation from both sets of fans.

AEK 0-0 Kerkyra

I was really looking forward to this game today as it was going to be my first AEK match that I’d be seeing live since last season. I’m now sitting here wondering what I was all excited about in the first place!

First match of the new year after a fairly quiet holiday period and we needed a win to keep a good grip on third place. We needed a win to start the new year on a positive note, to get revenge on Kerkyra for beating us in the first round… yet we could not even score a goal!

The Kerkyra team we faced today played football like amateurs. They couldn’t create any decent attacks and their defense had trouble handling even the smallest amounts of pressure. AEK teams of previous seasons would have won this game 3-0 at least and should the AEK team of today! To be fair, we did manage to create a few chances, but never did it look like our team really have what it took. Unfortunately, if this is the best AEK can offer right now we are in for a rough few months.

What is obvious from today’s match is that a) we need to clean up a fair bit (players like Eder specifically must go NOW!) and b) we must find a replacement for Djebbour! First, let’s deal with Eder. To be honest I had high hopes for him during the pre-season. He showed alot of potential and I truly thought he could play an important role within our team. Today however was a different story. No passion at all, he contributed nothing to the match, was absolutely useless when off the ball (he forced Libe to run more than he should have had to to pick up his slack), completely disappeared for long periods of time, and was a huge waste of a spot on the pitch. There is no room for players like him though I suppose Jimenez did need one final performance like his today to confirm his opinion on him. I pray that we never see him play again!

We also need a new striker up front now that Djebbour is gone. Sure, Blanco might be in some good form lately, but he missed some good chances today and him and Libe alone up front simply will not last the rest of the season.

I was pleased with Nasuti and Dellas today. Both did what was required of them today and I feel they complimented each other well… however, things may quite possibly have different had we faced a team with a half decent attack. Karabelas gave a decent performance, but I feel he could be a bit more aggresive when marking players. Also, while his footwork may be alright and he is capable of providing an attacking option down the left, he really must improve his corsses.

Georgeas received the MVP award today and rightfully so in my opinion. The guy is the personification of the word passion and had others on the pitch today showed the passion he did things might have turned out differently. He may have been a bit sloppy at times but he always ran and contributed what he could, when he could.

Kafes and Makos had decent games though Makos will have to give a bit more in my opinion.

Overall we created chances today, managed to get the ball up in their end plenty of times, but things will need to change and improve drastically if we are to expect better results and a chance at getting the cup! Some players need to go, others will need to provide more for the team and in general we will have to tighten up as a unit!

I was terribly disappointed with the atmosphere today. Sure, it may have been cold today, and our attendance may have been terribly low, but the atmosphere I remember just wasn’t there. Plenty of cursing, applause when it was deserved, but no flares, no singing… very little to give the players some added motivation.

Kavala 2-1 AEK

Exactly the kind of result I was expecting. Disappointing to say the least, almost repulsive at times. Our team showed very little will to win, no hunger for any from of result. It is clear that everyone out their needs to wake up, and soon. We have a great coach leading us but with the way things are not even Mourinho could get much out of these guys if they don’t put in the effort required.

With the way things are in the superleague now, there are no easy matches. Ten years ago, five years ago, maybe even two or three years ago, the vast majority of the teams below fourth place would be considered pushovers for AEK. Things are no longer this way. Larissa, Kavala, Tripolis, Iraklis, these are all teams able to knock off points from the big three on a regular basis and unless a team shows up to play football they will not succeed in the 1st division. Unfortunately, it seems our players haven’t realized that 100 percent effort is required 100 percent of the time!

Our defense today will not cut it, not in Greece, and not even in the Uzbekistan 2nd division. If you see some of the goals being scored lately in the league it becomes clear that there are some talented attacking players out there right now, both Greek and from abroad, and if you give them any space you will be punished for it. Our defense needed to be alot tighter today and much less sloppy, generally and with both the goals we let in.

Up front, we really lacked creativity. Scocco didn’t come in until the second half, and Djebbour wasn’t with the team due to injury, and without either of them we were dull. Leonardo tried at times but just wasn’t working, and Burns could have done better. We did miss a few easy chances in front of goal but those chances were quite rare throughout the game.

To be honest, there wasn’t really a time when either team had full control of the match. My stream did cut out at times, and I missed about 10 minutes in the second half, but if AEK had showed up to play some football they could have come out with a more positive result. Having said that, they have a great chance to turn things around next week when we take on Olympiakos at home. Surely the championship hopes for us are passed, but we can still turn our season around and leave our mark on the league. We had perfect opportunities to do so earlier in the season but we blew them, lets make sure we don’t do the same this time!

As always, please leave your feedback. If anyone has specific opinions on players I would love to hear them since after spending half the time switching between streams trying to find one that works, you lose track of such things.

Kavala-AEK

So, not sure if you saw the result of the Ira-PAO match today, but Ira were up 2-0 early in the first only to end up blowing it and losing 2-4.

What does this mean? The pressure really is on now for us to take home all three points and nothing less from our trip to Kavala tomorrow. Certainly easier said than done, but we have no other option now! The next match is a home derby against Olympiakos so six points in the next 2 games could really help us out considering after this we would have completed our derbies until the second half of the season.

Some positive news for the team is that Scocco will finally be returning. Djebbour is still recovering from an injury last I heard, and both Manolas and Dellas will be out due to their ridiculous red cards last match, so we could use all the help we could get.

I can honestly say I have no clue what to expect come tomorrow. This team so far under Manolo has shown us great performances (the 0-4 against Aris and 1-5 against Panserraikos) as well as depressing ones (most recently against PAOK as well as the match with Panionios). Having said that, the team will hopefully be looking to prove a point because if we dont turn things around soon any chances for a championships will be slipping out of reach.

PAOK 2-1 AEK

So, I watched most of the first half and parts of the second, but one thing was obvious today. We didn’t deserve even a point today looking at how we played. PAO tied 1-1 at home against Larissa, yet for the second week in a row we fail to capitalize on a great opportunity and instead of being that much closer to first we now sit in fourth place (with three teams playing tomorrow who could catch up to us).

We had very little organization and could not gain any control of the game. We started with Djebbour and Blanco but many feel that Libe should have gotten the start. I know he only recently returned from injury but I think he could have made a difference. However, to add to our injury problems, Djebbour seems to have injured his shoulder, an injury which has bothered him in the past as well. I’m not sure the details yet, but things are starting to look tough again. Both Manolas (completely undeserved) and Dellas (who was on the bench!) received red cards meaning our options on the pitch are starting to look thin once again.

PAOK today were average at best, and had we showed up and played some football I am confident we could have seen even all three points. It’s a shame really since PAOK has seemed to become that team lately that we can always count on for points. Afterall, the last time they beat us in the league was 2007.

Our shots on net statistic for the match is pretty frightening… only 3 in the entire 90 minutes! And our one goal came from a penalty. Things really aren’t looking good, and we have some critical matches coming up in both the league and Europe… hopefully we can turn things around but it does seem like we’ve been saying that for a while.

Alot happened during and after the game, and I’m still confused around many of the details. Firstly, there were a couple incidents on the bench. One main one involved Dellas and a PAOK fan who threw a 1.5 liter bottle at the players (I am not sure if the bottle was thrown at the bench or Dellas specifically). Dellas threw the bottle back resulting in a red card. I’ve heard that Dellas is looking into taking legal action against the fan, so we’ll see. However, this is not nearly the first time incidents like this have happened at Toumba. You would figure they would look into resolving the the problems, maybe by making moderations to the stadium? I hate to see that happen, but its clear that fans like these cannot be given all the privileges of other fans. I know all teams in Greece has fans who cause trouble, and AEK certainly has many. However, this sort of thing is pretty much your average occurrence for a PAOK game.

It doesn’t end there though! Remember the incidents involving fans AEK players after the Panionios match? Well, 50 PAOK fans were outside the AEK change rooms yelling at Dellas, Dimitriadis, and co… only in Greece does stuff like this happen! How 50 fans can get there in the first place, let alone stay without being forced away immediately, I will never understand.

If anyone watched the match, please leave a comment. I would like to comment more on our actual performance but I was distracted at the time of the game. Thanks!

Panionios 1-0 AEK

You gotta love AEK. The minute a golden opportunity comes around to put us within two points of first place, what do we do? We waste it!

Panionios hasn’t been our luckiest team to play against recently, and today proved to be no different. However, very little, not even luck, could have assisted us today with the way our players played (as was evident considering the fact that Saja saved a penalty). There was no will evident in the majority of the players, no team chemistry, a stupid red which could have easily been avoided by Dadomo… just a poor performance all around.

To be honest, I would have loved to see us beat Panionios, but I had a feeling this would happen. Regardless, the team has proven they can play nice football against tougher opponents, and I’m sure they can bounce back, but there was no excuse for today’s performance.

To make matters worse, both Dellas and Diop picked up injuries.

Our starting lineup had Saja in net (who had a good game, including saving a penalty who’s rebound could have ended up in the net), but a defense which really wasn’t good enough. Argyriou has shown some good things but his performances have been far from flawless (it was his clumsy tackle which led to the penalty). I can’t go into much more detail since the ANT1 quality in Canada was just terrible and I missed part of the second half, but they will need to improve greatly for our game with Anderlecht, one which I still feel they can win if they show up and play football.

Djebbour had a brilliant chance to put AEK up by one after getting onto the receiving end of a Leonardo freekick but his finish wasn’t good enough.

Makos received verbal abuse throughout the match which led to our players being attacked by the Panionios fans as they were boarding the bus. Panionios fans,  living up to their name the Paninios kittens (sorry, is that supposed to be Panthers?) How pathetic can you get, to the point where you would attack unexpected and unprotected players? Police were nowhere to be found and the players were forced to defend themselves. Additional support came from Lagos, Arabatzis and Manolas who went to the aid of Libe, Dellas, and Djebbour. Pathetic… more reason to see Paninios and their kittens sink down to second division.

Kittens… always running.

 

 

Hopefully we can put these events and this match behind us. We have a good team, an experienced and passionate coach, a new training ground ready soon, this is a prime opportunity for us to win some silverware, even if its only a cup. Hopefully the players regroup and focus on the task at hand.

 

Panthrakikos 1-5 AEK!

If you remember from past year’s, we’ve never been extremely impressive in the cup. Narrow wins against teams like Xanthi, Panserraikos, and even smaller clubs had over time become the norm for us (aside from that eventful cup final two years ago).

Well, all that changed today! To be honest, after hearing Panthrakikos go up 1-0 I thought we were gonna be in for another long match. Never for a second did I think we would lose this match, but I never imagined the turnaround that eventually happened. Ismael Blanco (it’s been a while since we’ve seen him on the scoresheet) scored his first goal, and one which surprisingly wasn’t fed to him but actually required some footwork. Good, 1-1, still plenty of time left. Next, we get a penalty, one which Blanco converts with ease. 2-1 up, but still plenty of time left. I was thinking to myself at this point all we need is one more goal and we’re good.

Seems as though Blanco and co had other plans. Zorro (he’s back!) scored his third of the night, an easy one set up perfectly by Roger (who, from what I heard had yet another fantastic performance!). Then, Karabelas of all people scores to make it 4-1. Somewhere in between the third and fifth goal we hit a post with Leonardo and narrowly missed on more than one occasion, but Leonardo finally got one in, another perfectly set up goal, this time with the assist coming from Rafik Djebbour. That’s three goals coming from assists placed at the scorer’s feet. Something tells me this team is working on efficiency up front with the ball movement, assists, and positioning all very well done.

 

5-1, a score to thrill every already delighted AEK fan, despite the rain and cold up north. Bearing in mind that Panthrakikos’ goal was scored from a penalty (and ignoring the stumble in Belgium), that’s 10 goals scored in Greece (two league and one cup game) in three games! Guys, I think AEK is back!

Also, considering Blanco’s hat trick today and Roger’s great performances lately, I can’t help but feel we have a team in a great position. We have three great strikers (assuming Blanco keeps this up) and chances are at one given moment at least one of them will be on a patch of good form. In addition, with Roger performing so well, we are set in attacking mid (that is, if we can hold on to Scocco), and with Diop and Makos’ solid performances the past two or three games, our defensive mid is also set. Now, hopefully we can deal with injuries, though Manolo seems like the kind of guy that can almost always work out a solution with what he has.

Enjoy the goals below. Too bad I can’t find a more in depth highlights vid, because it seems we played some nice football up front at times at a few of those goals.

Great job to the supporters who were there and vocal despite the weather, and great job (though to be honest, I think that’s a bit of an understatement) to Manolo! He’s turned around this team incredibly, got players playing some great football, players who are happy to be training and playing and, most important of all, is getting results. Sure, you may stumble against Anderlecht, especially when it’s your first European game with a new team, but against Panthrakikos, these are games where you can really establish who’s boss in Greece and AEK certainly did that today.

 

VAMOS BIEN!!

AEK 1-0 PAO!

I’m downloading the match right now and will watch it when its completed. In the meantime Ill add what I’ve heard being mentioned so far.

First of all, huge win! We needed a positive result to pick ourselves up after stumbling with Anderlecht, and we did it. As AEKMAN74 stated, Manolo made a few unexpected choices, but it sounds as thought they’ve paid off. From what I heard, Dadomo gave a pretty effective performance, which is a relief considering we’ve seen very little of him so far. Either way, things are looking great for Manolo! His first two games against rivals, and six points is the end result! At this point we couldn’t ask for anymore!

Though things don’t look good right now with some injury problems for us, it sounds as though we were all over PAO. After watching the youtube highlights, it is clear only one team deserved the three points, and that team is AEK. Even without Scocco and Libe, we looked very dangerous up front.

On the other hand, it sounds as though PAO were just terrible. Funny how, even with a fraction of their budget, we still show them who’s boss in Athens. Even with “world class” strikers like Cisse, they still can’t score on us (by the way, sounds as though Dellas had a pretty solid game… all I can say is well done to him considering his age and the amount of playing time he’s dealt with).

I’ve read there were around 40,000 supporters, a bit lower than the pre-match estimates. Regardless, it looks like the atmosphere was fantastic and it seems the Originals put on quite a show! BRAVO AEKARA!!!