Terim: “To work hard for the championship – Maybe 2 stoppers, the chairman keeps trying to fill the position”

His press conference is full of expletives Fatih Terim after the victory of Panathinaikos over PAS Ioannina with a score 2-0 on the Avenue.

The Turk appeared satisfied with the image of his players for one hour against Epirotes, he emphasized that his team wants to press high, while he also referred to the transcriptsnoting that “two stoppers can also be acquired».

What Fatih Terim said in detail at the press conference:

If he is satisfied with the image of Panathinaikos and the effort to play faster, with immediate recovery of the ball – Were these elements that he had passed through the training sessions and expected?

Happy birthday everyone. We are all very short time together. As you said the reaction of the group was very important. We were trying not to let them attack easily. We tried to play with a lot of tempo. We had very little time to work on them, but I didn’t expect to get them out as quickly as we worked on them in training. For an hour we were pretty good. As time goes on, we will better reaction from the players and we will play better. We have to press a lot and we have to not let them play the way they want. Congratulations to the opposing team as well, they played well. They also had a lot of fast players in attack. We didn’t have many phases in our goal and it was very good that they didn’t score. But you saw what we did in training today.

On the pressure that Panathinaikos had and how difficult it is to have it in a series of games: Each match has a different story, but we will always have some things, in each match. I was waiting for a half time to be able to show what we worked on in training, but we showed them on 60 minutes. We should have scored more, we had good chances. To raise the tempo and as soon as we lose the ball try to get it back, that’s what we will always try. We have a lot of fast players, we have to show that on the pitch. We cannot press throughout the match. We must always have the ball so we can rest and inside the game and show the data we had. Today when we couldn’t do that, we saw phases in our own goal. We will try to be a “shorter” team and not leave many spaces.

How close is Panathinaikos to the stopper’s transfer: We try, we don’t have much time, to quickly see what we are missing. We continue to watch the previous matches. I never see well because I watch games all night. In the center of the defense we need one or two players, because we will play every three match days. We’re not going to make a transfer just for the sake of it, I’m against that. For the big picture I try to see each player very quickly and get to know them. I will also see if I can, through the team, make this change that we need. And the president knows it and everybody on the team and we’re doing everything we can to find it. I hope it happens as soon as possible. Mr. Giannis, the president, is always trying to fill this position.

If he is going to be interested in a left-footed attacking midfielder: In the center of the defense we want a left-footed player. I have said something before and I stand by it, a good player can always play. I still support her. Until Aitor got tired, I told him to play at “8” during the match. They have to get used to this, every player can play everywhere. We also have Filip and the left back (Juancar) who was not with us today, as well as Fikai. I could play him today, I thought about playing left back, but I didn’t want to spoil the center. New players will come to the team and they will adapt.

How does he comment on the image of Panathinaikos after 60′ and if it worries him: Our physical condition needs to improve even more to be able to play at this pace throughout the match. I said for the 60 minutes, because we played at a very high tempo during that time. And after 60′, however, we had some phases, but I didn’t like the way we played. We made our changes, we were trying to change the game. We could do more. After 60 when we were 2-0 ahead, we understood that they saw it as a sure victory. Without breaking the beat, we were trying to play the same, but we need time. We also gave two phases. I have no problem with giving opponents chances as long as we have more phases. Because we will play very aggressively, sometimes giving no chance, I understand that. I want the whole team to rise high. We will take some risks, we want the whole team to rise, to rise high.

On whether he prefers to have a lot of toys at first or less: If we ask the players, they will ask for matches. They will prefer racing, not training. And I’m always with the players. We know the schedule. Usually there’s one theme every three days to play a game, but if you want to play in Europe in February, you have to be regular. I understand the schedule that exists, of course, we will play against difficult opponents, but we have to do it and we are OK with that. And the players will pay more attention to the way they live, they are professionals. We are very lucky to have professionals and we can spend this time with good preparation. Technically, with the doctors, with the whole team, we have to work together very well. We imagine you’ll want him to have more races, too.

His first impressions of the Panathinaikos roster and where Panathinaikos’ game needs improvement: We have good players. What I noticed is that all the players are very close. Everyone wants very much to reach the end in our goal. They are smart and they understand it themselves. We have not won the championship for 14 years. To get it we have to work very hard and we need them to reach our goal and they know it very well. They are working very hard and I am very satisfied for that. I also understand from the way we talk that they want us to play at a higher tempo. If we fix some of the things we need to, we’ll be fine. There is also this matter of not having our fans at home. If we had them today, the score could have been different. Once we have the fans, I believe the team will bond better and we will more easily achieve what we want.