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PAOK continue their chase after Olympiacos

In the last round, PAOK defeated Panathinakios, thus remaining close to Olympiacos. However, it's doubtful whether they'll manage to keep up for long

PAOK hosted Panathinaikos in the last round. They didn't start the match well. After only 20 minutes, Berg achieved a lead for the away team, but PAOK took over the initiative, which finally paid off. PAOK were in danger of losing those points, 10 minutes before the end, Berg was once again the key player. However, he missed the goal from a penalty shot. They managed to successfully finish the derby, and now they will face another one.

-I haven't had the chance to take a close look at Asteras this season, but I can say with certainty that they are a rather unpleasant team. They have excellent players and great counter-attacks, so we'll have to be extremely careful -said PAOK's midfielder, Alexandros Tziolis.

Lately, Zvonimir Vukic has been having trouble with an injury. The team hoped he'll be ready for the match against Asteras, but they finally decided that it would be better not to rush him, so he would be ready for the match against Maccabi.

Asteras had a similar story as PAOK in the previous round, but with a different epilogue. They hosted Atromitos, who achieved an early lead, but immediately after, Asteras started creating chance after chance. They achieved a draw, and even managed to take the lead 5 minutes before the end via N'Daw's goal from a free kick, but they failed to keep the advantage until the end of the match. They received another goal in the injury time, which rendered all their 80-minutes long efforts futile.

-We are in for a difficult match against PAOK, but we enter every match seeking a win. We haven't been at our best so far, but I believe we'll manage to make up for it -says Asteras' left back Christos Pipinis.

The team will have to manage without three players, namely, the defenders Lisgaras and Zaradoukas, as well as the midfielder Grazzini.

Last season, these two teams met six times, two times in the championship and another two in the cup and in the play-off, respectively. None of the matches ended in a draw. PAOK won four times, and Asteras won in two of the matches.

I'm trying to understand the motivation behind it, but I can't. I will assume that these odds were set on account of this league being under on the whole, because the odds are definitely not in accordance with what we saw so far. Who ever decided on it first, obviously didn't see any of the matches these teams played this season. As concise as possible - both teams are offense oriented - PAOK has to keep up with Olympiakos and every draw will cost them too many points, and Asteras are trying to reach the Champions League by keeping up with PAOK. Both teams might struggle to break through resistance of defense oriented teams and those kind of matches might have a small number of goals scored, but when it comes to the games like this one, I don't doubt in scoring. Asteras just played two derby matches, both of them were over, and PAOK played a derby match with Panathinaikos last round, which was also over. I have to point out there were plenty of attempts in all three of those matches, five or six goals would have been scored more likely than the games finishing under. These teams are generally scoring a lot, Asteras' games end with 3 goals on average this season, PAOK' with 2,7 goals. They met 6 times last season, three of those matches were over...And neither team were as much oriented on offense as they are now.