Marseille only in the mind of PAOK, the upcoming plans of Lutsescu

The loss to Panathinaikos on the avenue ended Dikefalos’ unbeaten streak that lasted 16 league games. In fact, it was only the second that Razvan Lucescu’s team knows in all competitions in 2022, after that in the first game against Midtjylland in the Conference League, which ended up not costing PAOK.

Of course, this one from the Greens will not have a significant price tag as PAOK is focused on the two games against Marseille. The quarter-finals of the Conference League follow in the Dikefalos programme, without an interlude for the championship following the postponement of the derby with Olympiakos in Toumba.

Lucescu decided to prepare his team for the first game in Marseille on Greek soil, as he usually does in recent European games. PAOK will not train at Velontrom and will travel to France after their last training session in Thessaloniki. With the Romanian coach’s press conference in Toumba, he will even close the preliminary round of the big game in his base.

With his options against Panathinaikos, the Dikefalos coach ‘betrayed’ some of his plans for Thursday’s quarter-finals, in which he would rest Douglas Augustos and Lefteris Lyratzis. The Romanian is waiting for Jose Angel Crespo, who returned to a normal training rhythm at the end of last week after overcoming the hamstring problem.

Aside from the Spaniard returning to his disposal, Lutsescu also needs to find out about Alexandros Mitritsas’ condition following his adventure with the coronavirus. The Spaniard, when at 100%, will be the duo in the stoppers alongside Ingason, with Enea Mihai being the PAOK coach’s alternative pick. Mitritsa will logically be a solution from the bench if he can travel to Marseille.