Ioannidis has been all over the place and has been gunning for his career record since October

Fotis Ioannidis entered the 2023-24 season with a “broken brake” and scored four goals in Panathinaikos’ first ten matches, three in Europe against Dnipro, Marseille and Villarreal, and three assists, two of them in Europe, in a match with Panathinaikos. Marseille and Braga. With the international striker developing into a footballer capable of helping his team inside and outside the penalty area.

In fact, the Greek striker contributed to 7 of the 19 goals Al-Nafal has achieved so far, and all this despite the fact that his participation in these first 10 matches was only 458 minutes out of a total of 930 goals scored by the Greens. Not even half of that.

He also has yet to play the full 90 minutes with Jovanovic because he has two equal strikers splitting time between the two.

However, Fotis Ioannidis, who started the season coming from the bench and in the last five matches wearing the main centre-forward shirt, is aiming early in the year to break the record for goalscoring output before the October break.

In his best season to date last year, the Greece international striker scored 7 goals in 42 appearances, with Ioannidis only finding the net in the league but not in the cup and Europe. In his previous five years as a professional at Clover and also at Levadiakos, he had not scored more than six goals.

This year he already has four goals. He has scored for the first time in a European institution and of course needs more to reach eight goals and surpass all his previous goalscoring records. Of course, with the time he has taken and the appearances he has had, one better than the other, no one can know where the Greek striker, who has his sights set on big things, will end up this year.

This year’s image on the pitch and the confidence he has in every game, whether he converted a penalty kick to keep Panathinaikos ‘alive’ in the 90+8 minute against Marseille, or ‘cut’ the ball over Reina to open the scoring against Villarreal in OAKA is what shows that Ioannidis is a player. Different this year.

The player who, through his appearance in the clover, wants to make a bigger leap himself, to help Panathinaikos achieve its goals and assists and then be helped himself. Either with a longer contract with the Greens or by moving to a foreign team.

Given the exposure in European matches, he has certainly raised his stock and there will be a suggestion for him if he continues in this vein for the rest of the season.