PAOK Thessaloniki is preparing for the most difficult journey in the last seasons! Razvan Lucescu (coach at PAOK) is in front of a very important match Thursday evening, at 20:00, when his team will meet Stamford Bridge on Chelsea. The match counts for the 5th round of UEFA Europa League Group L and has decisive accents for the Greeks.
The Greeks need at least one point in London and Chelsea is already qualified. Without batch problems, Chelsea comes after the first failure in Maurizio Sarri’s mandate, 1-3 in the Tottenham field. The Italian remains unbeaten on Stamford Bridge, but PAOK is in good shape and Razvan Lucescu just defeated the former team in the championship, which will give a good morale to the Greek club. The difference in value is, however, inconceivable.
PAOK depends on indirect results.
In the tour was 1-0 for Chelsea in Thessaloniki after the decisive goal scored by Willian, in the 7th minute. The English have the maximum score so far in the group. On the other hand, PAOK is the 4th place in the group (3 points) and needs at least one point to remain in the race for qualifying. Even so, the team of Razvan Lucescu also depends on the result game, because MOL Vidi can get the qualification in the next stage if he defeats BATE Borisov in the 5th round. The Hungarians have 6 points and the third place in the group is the Belarusian band.
Chelsea is likely to line up more reserves at the start with players such as Barkley, Loftus-Cheek or Zappacosta in the first 11. The mission remains heavy for PAOK, which has not lost any of the two moves made so far in England: 1-1 with Arsenal and 2-1 on Tottenham’s ground. Without losing on their own against Greek clubs, the Londoners have a series of 7 consecutive wins in the Europa League. With another success, Chelsea would equalize FC Salzburg in this chapter with 8 consecutive successes.
6 times the Greeks have qualified from PAOK in the UEFA Europa League, but they have never managed to go further than the first round of the elimination phase. PAOK comes with 3 consecutive home games, 2-1 with Panetolikos and Ergotelis and 2-0 with Xanthi. Chelsea suffered a single defeat in 19 matches this season.
PREDICTION: Over 2.5 goals @ 1.62
