Olympiacos' new brilliant transfer strategy vs previous seasons' mistakes analysed | OneFootball

It's summer of 2023, you wake up and remind yourself that Olympiacos just had one of their worst seasons in the club's modern history. Thrylos are in need of a full rebuild with over 40 players needing to leave the club and almost as many having joined during the course of the season. The club has Financial Fair Play trouble and can only bring free transfers as well as loan deals until it secures some form of European competition, such as the Europa League, and make sales. Signings are being made continuously while some of the players have unclear roles with the team under a new system ran by manager Diego Martinez. Holes are slowly being filled with signings in the hope that a core can be established with which to build upon. The plan is not clear, only that we need a lot of players and a lot must also leave.

Fast forward now to the summer of 2024. The season you experienced as an Olympiacos fan was absolutely ridiculous. You started off clear at the top of the Superleague table, but due to various fan issues you go on to lose points as well as morale and dropped down to the UEFA Europa Conference League. The third coach appointed during the season performed a miracle and in doing so salvaged a promising core of players - who won the Conference League title - along with a handful of golden generation talent - winners of the UEFA Youth League. While the Conference League overshadowed a second straight season without a domestic title, the end of the summer reminds you of how much pressure is riding on the current squad.

There's a big difference between this summer's transfer situation vs last summer though. While last year there was a chaotic clear out with a a rebuild needed from scratch, this summer there's a very clear picture of what we need to replace and supplement from the past season. Furthermore, there's no mystery regarding the scheme and tactics that the team will run. Our tactics are transparent, position roles clearly defined and player profiles well outlined. We also had a handful of expiring contracts as well as loans that we knew we wanted to renew. While the club was unable to retain the services of club captain and legend Kostas Fortounis as well as Vicente Iborra, it managed to renew leading goalscorer Ayoub El Kaabi, veteran winger Giorgos Masouras and young breakout goalkeeper Kostas Tzolakis. In addition, Thrylos shocked everyone by retaining - against all odds - an incredibly important piece in Porto star centre-back David Carmo for whom they came back with a stunning return bid. And the club is still negotiating for two other star loanees from last season in midfielder Andre Horta and winger Daniel Podence.

Alongside our renewals and loans, the club acquired very promising players in centre-back Lorenzo Pirola, winger Kristoffer Velde, striker Roman Yaremchuk, right-back Costinha and veteran midfielder Dani Garcia. Each of these players were carefully scouted and provide unique attributes that offer different dimensions to our attack, press, and defensive shapes. Lastly, we included five Under-19 players in our summer preparation, three of which are due to be rostered for the regular season. Sure some of our renewals took longer than expected and well past the date coach Jose Luis Mendilibar hoped for (July 8) , but the squad is in the best shape it has ever been in during a summer transfer window since the 2019-2020 season. As things stand, the squad needs two pieces to complete the unit. First, we need a creative winger - preferably Podence - and a left-back that can compete with and support Francisco Ortega. Anything else is surplus. Many Olympiacos fans are impossible to please. They expected business to be done in July while we had no European qualifiers to worry about. After complaining about transfer summers where we signed 30 players, they now complain about the "few signings" we have made. I'm here to tell you all that the transfer strategy this summer is a drastic improvement over what we have seen in the last two seasons. Our needs are clear, our selections are logical, and our business is not done.

When the window shuts we can thoroughly analyze whether our needs have been met or not. Until then, keep calm and wait to see what comes next!