Panathinaikos Tipped to Pursue Foreigner as New Technical Director, Plans to Target Past Players
Following the news of the well-publicised sacking of Nikos Dabizas from the Panathinaikos hot seat as technical director, news has emerged of his potential replacement.
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Initially, it was thought a Greek in the mould of Dimitris Papadopoulos would be targeted, however, recent reports according to ‘Live Sport’ indicate that the Greens are considering hiring a foreigner as to replace Dabizas.
While no names have been mentioned for the role, decisions are being made as to the Trifylli’s strategy for the upcoming January transfer window. January is a notoriously tricky time to sign new players as clubs are desperate and as a result, players’ values increase. Given the financial circumstances surrounding Panathinaikos, a prudent approach is required. According to the latest reports, the Greens will be in the market to add 1-2 players of significant quality that will make a genuine difference to the team, and bigger contracts will be handed out if necessary as opposed to what we have seen in recent transfer windows. In saying that, the club will stop at this point and not look to make major readjustments to the squad.
Former players such as Marcus Berg, Carlos Zeca and Lucas Villafanez are the early frontrunners to return to the Trifylli. At the same time, the position of Giorgos Donis as head coach is safe as he has the backing of Giannis Alafouzos and the long-term plan is to foster the development of the club’s young players.
Ironically, straight after Dabizas’ sacking, Tasos Chatzigiovanis immediately put pen to paper on a fresh three year deal which keeps him at his boyhood club until 2022. Contract renewals are not set to stop here, as this will be another key role of the new director of football. Locking down the club’s best and youngest players such as Dimitris Kourbelis, Sokratis Dioudis, Emanuel Insua, Mattias Johansson, Christos Donis, Giorgos Vagiannidis, Alexandros Athanasakopoulos and Dimitris Serpezis. The latter two are expected to sign new deals imminently.
Meanwhile, the club is vigorously attempting to release four unwanted players who are on relatively high wages and have not featured this season. According to Sport24, Panathinaikos has been in negotiations with the respective agents of Anthony Mounier, Vangelis Oikonomou, Fanis Tzandaris and Panos Armenakas in relation to cutting their contracts short. It is believed this saving has the ability to facilitate the resignings of the aforementioned younger players.
In other news, Italian forward Federico Macheda has returned to training and is in line to reclaim his spot in the starting line-up to face Larissa this weekend. The striker freely trained with the team for the first time in two weeks as he battled a back injury. Uffe Bech also appears to have recovered from his injury.
