Rampant PAOK enjoy the joy of six
GREEK SUPERLEAGUE - MATCHDAY 6
| PAOK | 2 - 0 | Apollon Smyrnis |
|---|---|---|
| Mauricio 16' Crespo 90' |
PAOK’s imperious early-season form continued on Sunday with a comfortable 2-0 home win over SuperLeague strugglers Apollon Smyrnis as the Salonica club made it six wins out of six.
Watch LIVE GREEK TV including full GREEK SPORTS coverage from AGONASport.com!
Mauricio’s first-half goal set Razvan Lucescu’s men on their way, and despite spirited resistance from the visitors, Jose Angel Crespo sealed the three points with a late close-range header.
Following their midweek thrashing of BATE Borisov in the Europa League and on the back on last weekend’s derby triumph over Olympiacos at the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium, nothing less than maximum points was expected of the home side against Apollon, who arrived with a woeful record of five straight defeats.
And PAOK began the match strongly, looking for an early goal to sink Apollon’s morale. Surely enough, PAOK’s early enterprise paid dividends as they opened the scoring after 16 minutes following a corner whipped in by Dimitris Pelkas.
The Greece midfielder’s set-piece found its way to Mauricio, who made no mistake from close range.
PAOK had several half-chances either side of half-time while Apollon were limitee to pot shots from distance as they struggled to get into the final third for long spells, and it seemed like there would be no further goals to write home about.
But the excellent Pelkas earned himself another assist in added time as another corner from the diminutive playmaker found the head of Crespo, who wrapped up the three points from close range.
PAOK lead the standings with 16 points from their opening six matches, having started the season on -2 points due to punishments for crowd violence last season. They are four points ahead of AEK and Olympiacos, who meet in Sunday’s big derby duel.
