Life on Panathinaikos without Aitor

Football is also going through difficult times. Last Sunday we experienced one of them in Leoforo. Aitor, who was at the peak of his career, saw his foot glued to the ground at a stage when everyone understood the flank was being teased.

The hard side of the sport

The diagnosis was a total cruciate ligament tear, an injury he sustained at the age of 26 during one year of contract. A footballer who has been slow to adapt to our country, who had a bleak first year, has managed through work and inner effort to show who he really is.

At a time when he himself was playing the best football of his career and could concede a step in the summer either through a much higher contract at Panathinaikos or even promotion, he ate the ball.

Aitor has seen the tough side of the sport and all he can do is keep his head down and work as hard as possible on his recovery to leave as little residue as possible from this particular injury and come back himself.

This year’s championship got poorer

For all sane minds, no matter which team they support, what happened on Sunday night was very sad. The Greek League essentially lost its protagonist. The Spain winger was the man who made the difference in this year’s league, leading his side to that impressive start and propelling them to the top of the league.

We don’t have many footballers in our country who can judge a game on their own and it’s sad to lose them. Aitor’s injury is impoverishing this year’s league and Ivan Jovanovic will need to find a way to prevent his absence from costing his team.

Aitor gave personal victories

The mission of the Serbian technician is not that easy. After all, there aren’t many footballers who can do what the Spaniard did in Toumba. Panathinaikos won the Thessaloniki derby by a decision by Jovanovic.

Panathinaikos didn’t play well overall, it was just that the Serbian coach’s decision to change sides of Aitor and throw him at Vieirinia couldn’t be countered by PAOK’s defence. Panathinaikos came back with long passing attacks and space football and won the match.

There is currently no player in the squad doing anything similar, probably not even in the Greek league. Don’t call me a bad name, form matters, the individual situation each footballer finds himself in depends on the season and Aitor was injured when he was at his best in an individual situation where he wins games on his own could.

Panathinaikos needs to improve overall

Jovanovic is aware that the whole team has to work better so that his absence doesn’t cost him. Panathinaikos runs a 9/9 record, with most wins coming from the limit.

In practice, he credits the very good defensive function of his team, the fact that Panathinaikos conceded only 2 goals in 9 games and Aitor’s effectiveness in the first 7 games. As a team, it didn’t have the aggression or pluralism it should have.

In order to be able to continue on the path that Aitor has largely mapped out for the team, they have to work better offensively overall. The good thing for Jovanovic is that there are a lot of players who can do a better job of creating and running than they have been up to now.

Let Sporar become the assassin of Panathinaikos

Sporar has shown he is a great striker who offers elements Panathinaikos didn’t have last season and it is a given that he can have better productivity than the 3 goals in 7 games he has scored so far.

The fact that he didn’t score much in the beginning didn’t matter because he offered a lot of plays, but mainly because Panathinaikos got the goals from Aitor. Victory over Aris would never have happened if the Slovenian striker hadn’t scored a great goal.

It’s not just the header, but as Verbits admitted in the interview with Kostas Goulis, he inspired the phase, thought it up first and then executed it. It is clear that Sporar has all the qualifications to become this killer of Panathinaikos, but it alone is not enough.

Verbich, Bernard, can’t play the position like Aitor

It’s also clear that none of the Verbics and Bernards currently in the team’s roster can play the left-back position like Aitor. Jovanovic wasn’t upset and decided to change his role to the Brazilian. He’s seen that he’s lost pace and is no longer the winger who can beat opponents’ backs one-on-one, but he retains his quality and has a good pass in tight spaces.

He’s better at playing between opponent’s lines, penetrating space like in the missed opportunity in the opening game against Aris, emptying Dubbo and capitalizing on the vertical pass, playing between opponent’s lines like he did on the assist he drew in Palasios in Lamia.

Using it on the PAOK side in Toumba in the first half gave Lucescu’s team the right to win the game from his side. He needs to improve his runs and stamina a lot to play on the left and Jovanovic will try him in a three-midfielder winger formation.

Verbich has to pull himself together

Verbich has different properties. Until the Aris game he was disappointing. Heavy, it didn’t click well and it seemed like it was constantly playing a click slower than each stage required. However, he made his first full appearance in the game against Aris.

He kept the ball safely in his own side, had good positioning, pressed into opponents’ space, played a lot with Juancar and made a great shot that set Sporar up exactly where his compatriot wanted it.

However, data cannot be a weapon in Jovanovic’s space football like Aitor. He is not the winger who, like Aitor, takes over the full-back in the sprint and hits the defense in the back. He enters the space of fully organized attack but hasn’t had any good final executions in this state, apart from the headed goal in the game against Levadeiakos.

However, it is certain that the Slovenian winger can play better than before, Panathinaikos would never have won Aris if he hadn’t played his best game in Panathinaikos colors and you understand that Jovanovic has a great need to get him.

To repeat last year’s story with Palasios

Aside from forward Sporar, who possesses the rare ability to play both as a forward in an organized defense and in space, Palacios is currently the only regional forward capable of playing space football.

Except the Argentine didn’t start La Liga well. He had an injury problem that still looks like he hasn’t gotten over it. He starts but rarely finishes his efforts, reminiscent of the face he showed at the start of last year’s championship.

Jovanovic and Panathinaikos residents can reasonably hope that this scenario will repeat itself this year. Last year Palacios scored 10 goals in the regular season and 2 more in the playoffs. There are 4 games left in the first round and he has only scored 2 goals.

It didn’t matter because Aitor scored for him, Panathinaikos found all the goals it needed from its wingers and space football, but now Palasios needs to step up and match last year’s numbers and repeat last year’s history. Creator Bernard’s promotion will help the attacking trio get the numbers they need.

All together the promotion of Bernard will help a lot. The Brazilian might not resemble the winger who played one-on-ones with everyone in front of him in his younger years, but it’s clear he’s rising with the times and taking the position of staff midfielder.

He can touch the ball between the opponent’s lines and pass to the attacking trio from closer range, which will help Sporar, Verbic and Palacios to gain the efficiency gains we wrote about above.

Tsokai also joins the rotation

It also seems that tough midfielder Tsokai will be added to develop and improve the whole. Jovanovic needs to find players to increase his rotation.

The Albanian midfielder has shown he can inject additional toughness into Panathinaikos’ axis without letting the side aggressively lag behind. He enters both areas, playing vertically and showing involvement at many points in the game.

Of course we need to see more of him to be sure but early signs are encouraging and Jovanovic needs players to help him.

Jovanovic will first try to improve his squad and then look for a transfer

With an acknowledgment that players are needed, the easy solution for some would be a transfer. Of course, a winger will be brought in in January to ensure Panathinaikos don’t squander a chance at the league title after 13 years.

But Jovanovic is not one of those coaches who expect a solution from someone who will come from outside. He works to find advantage alone with those he has in his hands.

It goes without saying that at the moment he is only concerned with how he will first solve the void of Aitor from the inside, first he will work and then he will look which player will finish him and there is the possibility of being acquired.