1.3 The Bull

Welcome back for my third post of this save so far. If you have missed either of the first two you can click here
Now back to this post which will round up my second season in charge at PAS Lamia 1964. I’ve named this post The Bull after our striker Bachana Arabuli (BULI > BULL get it? terrible really but the best I could think of) anyway here is a look at the beautiful man…

Last season my top scorer was Tasos Karamanos with 10, this needed to be improved, I watched some of our games back especially the ones where we had a high number of chances and we hadn’t taken them and noticed that Karamanos had missed a lot of chances whereas Arabuli was more clinical but had less chances so I swapped them around, No change to the tactic just a simple player swap. We will see how it plays out.

Pre Season

A decent pre season which ended which Arabuli picking up a hat trick vs lower league opposition. 6 games 24 goals 4 conceded.

August

The season started earlier this year due to the Qatar world cup (horrendous planning), We started off with a 1-0 win vs Atromitos with Romanic picking up the winner. This was followed by a crazy game vs Panserraikos where we went 1-0 up thanks to an early Tsoukalos goal but then 3-1 down before Adejo and a Arabuli double secured the comeback 4-3 win. Next up was Asteras Tripolis who we brushed aside thanks to Bachana “The Bull” Arabuli (thats not catching on) getting a hat rick and Gentzoglou grabbing his first of the season. We then made it 4 wins out of 4 with a 3-1 win over Volos with another Arabuli double scoring one either side of Saramantas. We rounded off the unbeaten opening month with a 1-1 draw at home thanks to a late Romanic equaliser. 5 games 13 points 13 goals scored 6 conceded. Not a bad start to the season.
Arabuli goal count – 7.

September

Only 3 games in September due to the international break. We started with a 3-1 loss vs PAOK with Tyronne grabbing a late goal. Olympiakos showed us why they are the kings of Greece by dominating us in a 2-0 loss but we beat PAS Giannina 2-0 with a Arabuli double.
Arabuli Goal Count – 9.

October

5 games in October before the break for the World Cup, We started with a late 1-0 win vs OFI with Eleftheriadis grabbing the winner in the 93rd minute. We followed that up with a 2-0 win away at Ionikos with goals from both main strikers Arabuli and Karamanos. Danny Bejarano of Boliva fame grabbed the only goal in a well fought 1-1 draw at home vs Panathinakos before Aris beat us 3-1 away with another Arabuli goal. We finished the first half of the season with a 0-0 draw away vs Atromitos.
Arabuli Goal Count – 11 (Already beating last seasons top scorer)

January

The World Cup is over, who won? Don’t know don’t really care. Back to Greek Super League football that is all that matters, We bounced back from being knocked out of the cup to a lower league team (shouldn’t have rotated) with a 4-0 win over Panserraikos thanks to goals from Arabuli, Nunez, Cristiano and Golemic. Next up was a 1-0 win over Asteras Tripolis with Gentzoglou grabbing the winner. We then had our yearly beating off AEK away losing 4-1 with a goal from Golemic. Volos were then brushed aside by my front two with Arabuli getting 3 and Karamanos getting 2 and a Nunez goal securing a 6-3 win. Panetolikos were there like a red rag to the Bull (last one I promise) as he grabbed a double to secure a 2-1 win. We then managed to get a well earned 1-1 draw thanks to another Arabuli goal before rounding up the month with a 1-0 loss vs PAOK.
Arabuli Goal Count – 18

Winter Transfer Window

5 Players out this window, none in. Tyronne leaves, A good player but I just couldn’t get him in the side €97,000 will help the bank balance though. Trouboulos, Mazoulouxis and Tropoulos were all out of contract this summer so we offered them out for free to get them off the books 6 months early. Troboukis will go out on loan for some first team football.

February

Olympiakos bullied us 5-0 but we bounced back with a 3-1 win at home vs PAS Giannina thanks to another Arabuli hat trick. A 2-1 loss away at OFI with a Golemic goal not being enough was followed up with a 1-0 win vs Ionikos Arabuli on the scoresheet again. Panathinaikos then beat us 1-0.
Arabuli Goal count – 22

March

As you can see we finished off the main season with a 2-0 loss to Aris which meant we again missed out on the championship group. This was disappointing as we actually earnt an extra 6 point this season but other teams around us improved too.
As we finished 15 points ahead of Atromitos there was actually nothing to play for for us and after a 2-0 win over the put us 18 points clear thanks to goals from Briek and Cristiano and a 6 week injury to Arabuli I decided to use the next 6 games to see if a few youngsters were ready to step up.
Arabuli Goal Count -23

April and May

The youngsters and fringe players didn’t do that well a 0-0 draw vs Volos was followed by 3 losses in a row vs Asteras Tripolis (2-1 Bejarano) PAS Giannina (2-1 Tsoukalos) and Panserraikos (2-0) Before Arabuli returned and grabbed a goal in the 1-1 draw vs Ionikos. We rounded off the season with a 2-2 draw vs Panetolikos with goals from Romanic and Karamanos.

Tables

Olympiakos won the title again 4 on the bounce and we again won the relegation group.

Awards

Second place in the Manager of the year awards again (Feel like @FM_Grasshopper)

Last years signing Gerasimos Mitoglou claimed Greek Super League Talent of the year.

Winning that award makes sense as to why he won the signing of the season award too.

As you can see Briek and Bojat broke into the first team last season too and overall they did well.

As you can see the public of Lamia are flocking through the gates to watch Gear’s team.

This is great news not just for me but the country, Greece now has 5 European spots going forward.

The Bull

A great season for Arabuli the second most goals scored in the league, When you think we finished 7th thats great.

Summer Transfer Window

My first move this summer was to upgrade the Director of Football, Niko Dabiza comes in hopefully to improve things on the transfer front.

Dabiza’s first job was to help improve the first team. I decided on three areas that I think needed improving. We needed a centre back to join Golemic and Mitoglou in the back 3. A creative midfielder to improve the Mezzala role and a strike partner for Arabuli as Karamanos just doesn’t score enough.

First up is Bakic who joins on a free, a 23 year old Serbian.

Next up is 29 year old from Kosovo, Besar Halimi he will be our new Mezzala.

Rounding off our ins for the summer is 26 year old Icelandic striker Ottar Magnus Karlsson who will hopefully form a deadly partnership with Arabuli to finally help us break into the championsjip group.

With the three coming in we had 3 going out from same positions, Adejo and Tsoukalos both leave while Cristiano gets another loan move.

Conclusion

Really disappointed to miss out again this season, Bank balance is also not looking good. I feel like we need to make Europe soon in order to improve massively. I’m happy with the 3 players in this summer as our team looks stronger for the upcoming season.
We set a target to improve offensively and we did that but again it just wasn’t enough.
I feel like we need both Arabuli and Karlsson to hit around 20 this coming season in order to break into the top 6.
I will be back soon with another update and thanks as always for reading.

Dan