Fiorentina travel to Greece on Thursday night to play PAOK Salonika on their third Europa League fixture of the season.
The Viola will be hoping to make it three wins out of three in Group K so far and will go into the game as clear favourites, with comfortable 3-0 victories over both Guingamp and Dinamo Minsk seeing them top the group.
PAOK had a very impressive start to the competition, thrashing Dinamo Minsk 6-1, but suffered somewhat of a setback when they lost 2-0 away at Guingamp last time out and will be aiming to pick up some more valuable points as they look to challenge the French side for second place, and passage into the knockout rounds.
There have been contrasting fortunes for both clubs in their respective domestic leagues this season, with Fiorentina struggling to maintain any consistency, winning just twice in Serie A this season, whilst PAOK are flourishing in the Greek Super League.
Victory has been the main word that could sum up the Greek’s season so far, with them remaining unbeaten and an impressive five wins out of six games seeing them top their league early on. They prepared for this fixture with a 2-1 victory over Atromitos on Sunday.
Their current head coach is Angelos Anastasiadis, who is currently in his third spell in charge of the club and took over in the summer to replace Interim manager Georgios Georgiadis, who guided the club through the last two months of their league season following Dutchman Huub Stevens’ move to Stuttgart in March.
He has a very experienced squad at his disposal, with the likes of Razvan Rat, Hedwiges Maduro and Maarten Martens joining from across Europe over the summer and joining Greek internationals Dimitris Salpingidis, Nikos Spyropoulous and Alexandros Tziolis.
Injuries to key players have hit Vincenzo Montella’s side hard, with last season’s top scorer Giuseppe Rossi out for several months, as well as the likes of Mario Gomez and loanee Marko Marin also being out for prolonged periods of time. However La Viola were boosted by the return of Joaquin and Micah Richards in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat to Lazio.
Fiorentina, though, have made several changes in the competition so far this season and that looks almost certain to continue, with keeper Ciprian Tatarusanu, Manuel Pasqual and Juan Manuel Vargas all likely to see him game time. Meanwhile, PAOK have a fully fit squad to choose for the clash at the Toumba Stadium, which kicks off at 19:00 CET.
Expected Starting XIs
PAOK: Glykos, Rat, Vitor, Skondras, Katsikas, Tziolis, Mak, Kace, Tzandaris, Salpingidis, Athanasiadis
Fiorentina: Tatsaranu, Richards, Tomovic, Basanta, Pasqual, Aquilani, Badelj, Valero, Cuardrado, Vargas, Babacar
