Panagiotis Glykos produced some excellent saves, but couldn’t prevent PAOK’s heavy defeat in Athens. After the final whistle, he commented on the deciding moments of the game and spoke about upcoming matches:

«We didn’t deserve to concede three goals today, despite their chances. We weren’t focused towards the end. Malezas’s dismissal determined proceedings. We were trailing and had to open up, enabling AEK to come easily to our box. We didn’t deserve such a heavy defeat. We need to focus on the individual errors we committed, because we practically gifted AEK Athens those goals. We need to look ahead now.

AEK Athens wanted it more, they were more passionate in duels, were fighting and got to each ball. The first goal was a combination of our error and a very good finish by their forward. Such a goal takes skills. We could have scored in the first half. It was difficult to react after the dismissal.

It’s up to us to be focused from minute one in the game in order to play to the best of our abilities. We need to be self-critical and prevent such things from happening again.

What can one say about not scoring today… There is also the rival goalkeeper, who did a good job. We need to be more focused in our finishing.

Suffering defeats in Athens is a subject we must dwell on. We must improve our displays in complicated away games. The deciding part of the season starts from now on. We can change our future and be more focused in order to achieve our goals«.

José Ángel Crespo, who featured both at left back and as a central defender (after Malezas’s dismissal), spoke about collective responsibility of PAOK players:

«We started on the wrong foot, gave our rivals means and opportunity to become dangerous, committed costly errors and couldn’t react. It was a bad game from all of us. We now must focus on the upcoming encounters.

I don’t think we were still thinking about the Olympiacos game. We should have made less errors today.

There is a huge must-win game coming up, the one against Panionios. The international break afterwards will allow us some additional work, so that we can return in full form for the last stretch of the league«.

Stelios Malezas, from his part, admitted the mistake that led to his dismissal. In his opinion, that was the deciding factor of the encounter:

«It was a heavy defeat. We didn’t start well, conceded a goal in the first minute and were under pressure. It took us quite some time to settle on the ball. My mistake got me sent off and, because of me, my team were forced to play in numerical inferiority. That red card decided proceedings.

After two bad performances, we played as we should against Olympiacos. We need to cut down on the number of our errors and not repeat them in upcoming crucial encounters. We must defeat Panionios. We lacked focus today and that is something we need to remedy. AEK Athens are strong at home and we expected such a performance of them after their coaching change«.