Devastating derby defeat

AGONAsport’s AEK contributor, Greg Gavalas, talks about the Kitrinomavri’s disappointing loss to Panathinaikos on Sunday.

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It is quite amazing what can happen in football. Sometimes you get a boring game, sometimes you get an exciting game, sometimes you lose the unlosable or win a game you thought at one point, “can this end already.”

Three years ago, AEK were trailing Olympiacos 2-0 and fought back to win 3-2! That team would go onto win the Greek Championship only to be dismantled the next season for one reason or another. For me, that reason was a failed loan system that paid off only once in the 2017/18 campaign.

Fast forward three years and 11 derbies later, AEK have gone from a thrilling 2-0 lead, “away” to Panathinaikos, whilst missing chances in between to go three or even four up, to lose 3-2 to the most inconsistent Panathinaikos team in decades.

It has left AEK fans, players, and staff devastated. AEK have not won a derby since April 1st 2018, totaling 11 derbies now without a win. All the Kitrinomavri have done is lose away, draw at home, and the fans have had enough.

Let us take a step back and start from the beginning, when it started well.

AEK began the game with a 4-2-3-1 formation. The only change from my preview piece was Marios Oikonomou did not play due to injury (I don’t know who does the injury reports nowadays in Greece, but not the first time that it has been wrong). As a result, Efsratios Svarnas took his place given the suspension of Ognjen Vranjes. The last league game Svarnas started in was AEK’s 1-2 loss to Xanthi in Athens on matchday one.

Andre Simoes and Nenad Kristicic started as the two holding midfielders and the attacking trio of Petros Mantalos, Marko Livaja, and Daniele Verde played in front of them. Portuguese international, Nelson Oliveira, led the attack up front.

Despite a slow start, AEK started to get their game in order after the first 10 minutes and found themselves 2-0 up thanks to goals from Michalis Bakakis (screamer of a shot) and Oliveira with Mantalos providing yet another great assist.

At the break, Nikos Kostenoglou replaced Kristicic with David Simao as Kristicic could not continue - so the move was needed. To be fair, AEK started the second half ok, with the same formation remaining for the rest of the match, and more so, players would at times move around up front.

AEK created glorious chances to put the game away and make it 3-0 or even 4-0, but Oliveira failed to capitalize on these opportunities. I made a point in my previous piece about his poor shooting and this proved costly for AEK in this game. His first chance was looped over Sokratis Dioudis only to hit the crossbar and the second opportunity was another miss hit shot that went pathetically off target.

Panathinaikos got back into the match and scored two goals in succession thanks to horrible defending by veteran defender Dmytro Chygrynski. In the first of three Panathinaikos goals, Italian hit-man, Federico Macheda, was allowed to dribble from almost the half way line to the penalty box and ran by the 33-year-old Ukrainian defender as if he was at a training run. The Roma born attacker placed a brilliant shot at goal that Barkas could not save, sparking life into the Panathinaikos players.

Three minutes later, the man of the match, Tasos Chatzigiovanis, ran down the right side of the field and put a low cross on the plate for Juan Perea to slot home. Why Chygrynskiy is marking the Colombian forward from behind is beyond me.

To cap off a disastrous 25 minutes, former AEK defender, Dimitris Kolovetsios was left unmarked and scored a great header from a corner to give Panathinaikos a memorable 3-2 comeback victory.

Many have blamed Kostenoglou for this loss, but for me, it is the players’ fault and especially the defense - who did not cover simple tasks of marking and getting in front of the attacker. In my last blog, I pointed out AEK’s slow central defense and the speed of the Panathinaikos attack. This was a telling effect on Sunday’s game and final result.

Sunday’s lapse was a monumental loss for AEK. The Championship is now dead and buried (nine points behind Olympiacos), the squad lacks depth as seen against the Greens, and important transfers need to happen in the summer.That makes it two seasons in succession that AEK are out of the running for the league title by November.

The one positive take away from Sunday’s derby was that Verde had his best game for AEK. He still needs much polishing, but it was encouraging. He should not have been subbed out, though, and Kostenoglou’s last two substitutions were very questionable.

The worst player out there for 90 minutes was Livaja, yet both Verde and Oliveira saw the bench when the Enosis needed a goal. This was puzzling and the Croatian needs to lift his game for the coming fixtures as does Chygrynskiy, whose terrible marking cost AEK dearly.

by Greg Gavalas

Image Source: to10.gr

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