Conference League: Anorthosis v Partizan preview

Partizan is away to Anorthosis on Thursday (9pm CET kick-off time) as part of Conference League group stage round 1 fixtures.

H2H

Partizan and Anorthosis met 48 years ago in a European Cup preliminary round and our team won the tie 6-1 on agg (3-0, 3-1).

TEAM NEWS

Danilo Pantic remained in Belgrade to nurse his muscle injury. Seydouba Soumah (muscle rupture) is out of contention. Returnee Nemanja Miletic didn`t make it to the list of 23 players available for this game. Newcomer Queensy Menig is in contention.

Partizan boss Aleksandar Stanojevic ahead of Anorthosis away:

-We always think we are pretentiously grand but we didn`t win in Cyprus since the early sixties. Therefore, I don`t see a reason for us to be over-optimistic although we are a club who plays European competitions on a regular basis. We have what to hope for but history taught us we need to show respect.

We travel to Cyprus to lock horns with a direct competitor for the next round of the competition. We watched Anorthosis games, did thorough analysis and we are more than ready for this encounter. Anorthosis plays with four at the back and upfront they have strong, towering and experienced forward. They also have a number of skillful internationals. Moreover, Serbian clubs didn`t have much success against Cypriot clubs in the recent years so we will enter this match fully cautious and motivated.

We are slightly unburdened now but we still have a duty to achieve something. Pressure is always there but it`s easier now once we are in group stage.

We`ll try to play attacking football with attacking formation. But, we`ll have to see if we will be able to impose ourselves.

Of course, we have to think about upcoming Eternal derby game as well and we are doing so for the past two weeks. We will have to rotate a bit as we have two games a week all the time and we`ll rotate accordingly bearing in mind we have derby game next weekend.