Despodov became an integral part of a well-coordinated machine: the two great performances against Kifissia

PAOK ideally completed its commitments before the end of 2023, when it passed Kaisariani with full football and played the newly enlightened Kifissia.

Lucescu’s men produced their most productive performance in this year’s Stoiximan Super League, finishing second in threat as their 15 final appearances were valuable 2.29 xGoals. The previous event happened three days ago in Tripoli when they beat Asteras 4-1. Thomas Murg’s star shone in this game. In Caesariani, Kirill Despodov was MVP.

The Bulgarian midfielder was one of six goalscorers for the Black and Whites and provided three assists, marking his most successful appearance for the Black and Whites. Tyson and Zivkovic were absent from these two games (Asteras and Kifisia), but their absence was never felt. And in this (especially at Kifissia) Despodov played an important role.

Despodov’s two great performances against Kifissia

Kirill Despodov was deployed on the right attacking wing, the position where Lucescu uses him most often, and the Bulgarian once again fulfilled his role. In fact, he was the player higher up the field (77) than Brandon Thomas (71) who turned further back on the field several times, as we can see in the Opta Stats/Perform graph.

Lucescu held him the entire game and Despontov finished the game with 58 actions with the ball. In fact, ten of them were in the Anagnostopoulos area. It was the highest performance by a Dikefalo player in the league, behind Tomas’ 11 appearances against Lamia.

In one of these ten actions, Despodov scored with a beautiful shot from deep. Where it stood out from Kifissia was the creation part. Created four finals All three even provided assists for his teammates (for goals from Thomas, Murg and Ozdoev).

At the same time he had four successful dribbles a record performance by a PAOK player in 90 minutes. Because Despodov was high up the pitch, he didn’t have many passes, but he had a very good scoring rate 26/32 precise passes.

The Bulgarian started perfectly at PAOK, but gradually experienced a slight decline as his role in Dikefalos is different to the one he had in Ludogorets. But now he shows that he is fully integrated, which is clear from both his appearances and his statements.

The summer addition of Despontov and the return of Murg gave Lucescu the opportunity to comfortably and successfully navigate the league and Conference League by splitting time and opening up the rotation. These two footballers were able to adequately fill the gap left by Živković and Tyson, who were missing in the last few games.