As the cliche goes, the game today really was a game of two halves. The first half was pretty poor by any standards for us. Despite opening up with a full strength team, we really struggled to control possession and got very chances on the Levadiakos goalmouth. It was Levadiakos who were pressuring during the half and the half really couldn't be over soon enough for me.

The second half was much better, Olaitan scored the opening goal after putting the final touch on a ball pinging around the Levadia 6 yard box. The goal seemed to change the game around and from this point onwards we were pushing the ball well into their area. The second goal came from a tight shot to the left of goal courtesy of Jose Holebas and it sealed the win for us.

Not the worst game in the world but due to the first half, it was hardly the best either. Overall we were far from convincing and it looked like Mitroglou wasn't match ready.


Olympiacos 2-0 Levadiakos
54' Olaitan
82' Holebas

Olympiacos : Roberto, Papazoglou, Papadopoulos, Manolas, Holebas, Maniatis, Samaris, Campbell, Saviola (73' Dominguez), Weiss (46' Fuster), Mitroglou (46' Olaitan)

Another week and another insipid first half from our team, augmented by our managers amazing knack of playing Machado out of position on the wing and favouring him over more suitable players. The action in the first half wasn't really worth mentioning and we only made 4 shots on target in the opening 45 minutes. The best of these was a close range backheel in the 23rd minute from Greco which was cleared off the line. Apart from this, nothing of any note.

The bizarre substitution of taking Greco off rather than the underperforming Machado at halftime did nothing to help the situation and the second half continued with another poor performance from the team with very little action to talk of. A second substitution on the 70' mark did allow us to get two strikers onto the pitch and change the system but we still couldn't manage to make any chances which counted.
Our final change in the 80th minute saw all 3 strikers now on the pitch but despite a point blank header from Modesto cleared off the line, we didn't manage to create much.
However, just as the game was about to end up came Djebbour who headed in literally the last shot of the game. 90+6' for the winning goal and Jardim is a lucky lucky man.

Levadiakos 0-1 Olympiakos
90+6' Djebbour

Olympiakos : Megyeri, Torosidis, Manolas, Contreras, Holebas, Maniatis, Modesto, Greco (46' Pino), Abdoun (80' Pantelic), Machado (70' Mitroglou), Djebbour

We had our first home match of the season tonight with our opponents being Levadiakos. Due to injury, Papazoglou came in for Contreras but apart from that it was almost the same lineup that we had utilised in last weeks match in Veroia. Perhaps we would see a better performance though as the team gets more used to the system. A minutes silence was held before the game kicked off and then it was into the match proper.

The match was not even 5 minutes old when we managed to score the opener from an indirect free kick delivered from just outside the box. The ball was shot at the wall itself but was low enough and had enough power to get through the defenders to where Siovas was waiting at the far side. A simple flick from him and the keeper was beaten, the result was our first goal at Karaiskaki for this season. The game continued with ourselves performing much of the attacking although Levadiakos also came forward on occasion.

After the first fifteen minutes Levadiakos started to pick themselves up and began to make more forays into our half. We usually broke these attacks up easily and then countered with runs of our own but it was also disconcerting to see a team like Levadiakos getting forward and controlling the centre of the pitch. We eventually took over once again in the midfield and made a corner or two but without any more success on goal.

Towards the end of the first half, Levadiakos once again made an effort to come forward en-masse and this caused us some defensive problems for a few minutes. We recovered though without allowing them to create any chances and went on the attack ourselves, scoring our second goal of the game. This came after a free kick was drifted into the box and the keeper caught it, dropped it and whilst the Levadiakos players protested and thought the keeper had been impeded, Djebbour shot into the goal. We finished off the first period making more attacks on the Levadia goal albeit unsuccessfully.

So at the end of the first half we have two goals but our play has not been overly great. We gave away possession in the middle of the pitch too easily and we seem to sit back further up the field than we did last year. This limits us when we counter attack to only using the two wingers and the striker and I'd prefer for the midfield to be a little more involved in building the attacks. Still despite our indifferent play we are two goals to the good.

The second half saw us continuing with our attacking play and almost got lucky in the 54th minute when Djebbour managed to dribble into the area. He was tackled however before he could fire the ball on target and score his second goal of the night. It was almost all one-way traffic in the fifteen minutes following the restart, Levadiakos only made one limp attack and we soon dealt with that. To round off this peiod of play, Djebbour got into the box once again and this time had his shot on goal blocked by the Levadia defence.

Our third goal of the night was scored on the 63rd minute with Maniatis getting on the scoresheet. This time the call was passed into the box from the left hand side by Abdoun, Maniatis was at the near side post in a good enough position to slide the ball into the net. Levadiakos came forward once more but we managed to easily break down their attacks. Djebbour, Abdoun and Machado managed to break through the opposition defence entirely but then spoiled their own chance when Djebbour inexplicably passed the ball forward to Abdoun and lose the ball through offside.

We scored the fourth goal in the 74th minute after another Abdoun and Djebbour breakaway (Abdoun should have been flagged offside for the initial pass to him) and Djebbour was on hand to put the finishing touches to a very fast break after Abdoun had confounded the keeper. Another good set of attacks just minutes later threatened to give us another goal but Levadiakos managed to recover and clear the ball from their box. We continued to pressurise around the opposition goalmouth and managed to give Levadiakos some real problems for their defence - they had to really struggle to get the all away on occasion. The game ended after just two minutes of extra time and we had managed to notch up another win.

In summary, the second half was so much better than the first. We played with a much higher line and the result was that we hald onto the ball for longer periods and also managed to control the midfield effectively. Abdoun was also much better in the second half and notched up two assists for his troubles. We now move onto PAS Giannena away for next weekends match.

Olympiakos 4-0 Levadiakos
5' Siovas
38' Djebbour
63' Maniatis
74' Djebbour

Olympiakos : Carroll, Torosidis, Siovas, Papazoglou, Holebas, Maniatis, Modesto, Ibagasa (73' Fuster), Abdoun (80' Fetfatzidis), Machado, Djebbour (85' Pantelic)

A team of 19 players has been announced ahead of tomorrows match against Levadiakos. Absentees from the list are Andreas Tatos and Panagiotis Vlachodimos whilst Diogo is also sidelined. Contreras and Papadopoulos are injured so it looks like a combination of Siovas - Papazoglou or more likely Siovas - Manolas will start the match in central defence.
The announced players are :-

Goalkeepers (2) :-
Carroll, Megyeri

Defenders (5) :-
Siovas, Holebas, Papazoglou, Manolas, Torosidis

Midfielders (9) :-
Greco, Ibagasa, Fuster, Modesto, Maniatis, Fetfatzidis, Fejsa, Abdoun, Machado

Attackers (3) :-
Mitroglou, Pantelic, Djebbour