Marked for Jack Aitchison
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
Kostas Pomonis and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match19 Sep 2026
3 matches without a goal for PAS Giannina
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mimito Biai, and the manager let it.
Match19 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Kavala, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at PAS Giannina would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
Kostas Thymianis and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at PAS Giannina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorge Gonzalez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad14 Sep 2026
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market14 Sep 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Sotirios Retsos chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Jack Aitchison knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at PAS Giannina, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at PAS Giannina, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 27 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at PAS Giannina until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Stavros Pilios was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jorge Gonzalez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
PAS Giannina asked and Petrolul Ploiești said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Jack Aitchison knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jack Aitchison trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market7 Sep 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Lisandru Olmeta arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Lisandru Olmeta has, at PAS Giannina, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Dénis Duarte was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympiacos have kept their man, and PAS Giannina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. PAS Giannina know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Market17 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to AEK: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
FC Argeș have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Market17 Aug 2026
Experience through the door at PAS Giannina
Filip Malbašić arrives at 34 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.