Three precious points and now all eyes on Giannina
Right now, the most important thing for PAOK is to react and get the results they need which will bring about changes, mainly in the team’s confidence. The Double-headed Eagle, even if there was a late scare, managed to get a 2-1 victory against Lamia and attention now turns straight away to the next match against PAS Giannina in mid-week.
The injuries to El Kaddouri and Taylor, combined with the need for some player management in view of the tough series of games this month, led Razvan Lucescu to make several changes for this game. In came Charis Tsingaras, Lefteris Lyratzis and Ingi Ingason to make their first appearances in the starting XI this season.
Despite the freshness and energy that PAOK showed at the start of the match, the phenomenon of this season of the opposition scoring first from their very first opportunity made an appearance again at the Toumba. Yes, it was Lamia who took the lead early thanks to Arabuli following a counter-attack, however, PAOK did not let that setback upset their rhythmn and they contined to try to play their way towards goal and threaten Garavelis’s goal.
The equalizing goal finally came in the 18th minute when Lyratzis, who had followed up on an attempt by Augusto, scored from the rebound to make it 1-1. PAOK continued to push forward with Lamia being limited to a passive role in the match, and the half ended with the possession standing at 70-30% in favor of PAOK. The pattern of the game did not change even in the second half, with the visitors given little space and relying solely on sporadic counter-attacks.
The breakthrough for the second goal for PAOK against the multi-faceted Lamia defense was provided by Kurtic, who followed up on the rebound from his initial effort which was saved to score at the second attempt and make it 2-1.
In the final moments of the game, Lamia, who had nothing to lose, pushed forward against a nervous-looking PAOK team and put the ball in the net in the fourth minjte of added time. However, fortunately for PAOK, the ‘goal’ was correctly ruled out as offside following a review by VAR.
Team lineups:
PAOK: Paschalakis, Lyratzis, Ingason, Michailidis, Sidcley, Tsingaras, Kurtic (82′ Schwab), Murg (62′ Biseswar), Augusto (75′ Swiderski), A. Zivkovic, Akpom).
Lamia: Garavelis, Provydakis, Adejo, Tzanetopoulos, Saramantas, Bejarano (86′ Tsoukalos), Gentzoglou (70′ Tzandaris), Eleftheriadis (80′ Manousakis), Nunez, (70′ Tyron), Romanic, Arabuli.
