Akis Zikos, a former Greece international, said Greek football is going through an unprecedented transfer window, with clubs investing more money than at any point before, speaking on The Football Show by Stoiximan on protothema.gr.
Zikos said this is the first time so much money has been spent in a single transfer window in Greece. He added that the most important element is that clubs managed to sign the players they had actually been targeting, rather than making moves simply for show.
He gave several examples: Olympiacos had been chasing Puerta and signed him, Panathinaikos did the same with Unai, PAOK landed Ugresic and AEK secured Lovro Majer. Zikos said these were transfers driven by each squad's playing needs rather than an attempt to impress.
Zikos, a midfielder who played for both AEK Athens and Panathinaikos during a career that included Greece's title-winning run at Euro 2004, is now a pundit on protothema.gr's football programme.
Greek players in demand abroad
Turning to the export of homegrown talent, Zikos described it as a positive that there is now greater demand for Greek players from clubs overseas. He said it is a sign of health when clubs produce footballers, and that although it remains a necessary evil that the best players leave Greece, there is now genuine demand for Greek footballers abroad as well.
Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and AEK assessed
Looking ahead to the new season, Zikos said Olympiacos needs time before it can be properly judged, given the scale of the changes made to its squad. He said there is no real sample of Olympiacos's work yet, and there is unlikely to be one soon because of the sheer number of players moving in and out of the club.
On Panathinaikos, he said the club's transfer activity shows it is still searching for the right balance among the players it has signed. He said AEK, by contrast, has kept a stable core of players from last season.
A gamble on replacing champions
Zikos closed by highlighting the significant departures from Greece's leading clubs over the summer, noting that the players who left had all won championships with their former teams. He said it is now a gamble whether the players brought in to replace them can achieve the same success.
