The second stage of the Greek Super League begins this weekend with round 14 and all clubs are ready to play each other for the second time in the season.
Abel Fereira’s PAOK are getting ready to head over to Agrinio where they will meet bottom-of-the-ladder Panetolikos, with the home side desperate to find some points as the opportunities to escape the relegation zone begin to dry up.
The manager of the Thessaloniki club will be looking to give some game time to a few of the players that haven’t had much of a chance to play so far in the season, such as Mauricio, Fernando Varela and Chupa Akpom, as his starters have been going since July and are in dire need of a rest.
Meanwhile, everyone at Olympiacos are on cloud number nine after their win against Red Star Belgrade that saw the club advance to the round of 32 of the Europa League.
But while fans are busy making their plans for next February, the only thing on Pedro Martins and his players’ mind is the upcoming game against Asteras Tripolis.
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With the club tied at the top of the ladder with PAOK, there is no room for errors and they will need their full focus if they hope to escape the Peloponnesian stadium with all three points.
The Portuguese manager is still hoping that he will have Mathieu Valbuena available for the encounter, with the Frenchman travelling all the way to his homeland to visit his personal physician in order to make a speedy recovery.
At AEK, everything is revolving around the arrival of new manager Massimo Carrera.
The Italian will hope to make a successful start to his career with the “Enosi”, but his job won’t be easy as AEK travel to Xanthi to play with the local club who have been doing quite well this season and will be looking for a win in order to get back into the hunt for a playoff position.
Panathinaikos will want to erase last week’s bad result at Volos with a convincing home result against Lamia, but issues keep coming up for manager Giorgos Donis.
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After defender Matias Johansson chose to serve the first of his two game suspension during this encounter, Giannis Bouzoukis left Wednesday’s training with an injury and his participation in the game remains doubtful.
Finally, Aris will hope to extend manager Michael Oenning’s unbeaten run at Crete against OFI, but the home side will also look to grab some points as they remain in the playoff positions.
Striker Abil Nabi will most likely not be participating in the game for the Cretans due to a knock he picked up during training.