Tetten gets the money, and the message is clear
Giannis Alafouzos extended Tetten's contract and pushed his annual salary into seven figures (25). That is the defining move of the week at Panathinaikos, and not because of the accounting. Panathinaikos have won all five league games, sit first on 15 points with a goal difference of +10, and the owner has just decided the man worth paying is the one already in the building. No fee, no adaptation period, no risk. Contract extensions are how a club tells its squad that the current group is the plan, and this one lands before a trip to Olympiacos on Sunday, October 11.
The league form is real, and it started with PAOK
Five from five, and the win that matters most was 3–1 at home to PAOK on September 6 (25). Since then: 3–1 against Kifisia, 3–0 against Panetolikos, 1–0 away at Kalamata on September 20, and a 2–0 away win at Levadiakos back on August 31 that got the run going. Two away games in that stretch, both clean sheets, both won by a single goal or two. Panathinaikos are not blowing teams away every week and they do not need to. Ten goals scored, none conceded in the last two league matches. That is what first place looks like in October.
Nistrup is already working the next window
Andreas Nistrup travelled to Livadeia for the Under-21 international to scout transfer targets, even though Panathinaikos had no player in that squad (30). It is a small detail with a bigger implication. The sporting department is recruiting in-season, not waiting for January to start looking, and it is using international youth fixtures as its scouting ground. Panathinaikos are the deepest squad in the division on current evidence, and the club is still shopping. That is a club behaving like a champion rather than one defending a lead.
What to watch next
Away at Olympiacos on Sunday, October 11, at 20:00 CEST. Everything in this start gets measured against that one. It is the first fixture this season where Panathinaikos go in as the side with nothing to prove and everything to lose, against the opponent whose result will define how the first two months are remembered. Then Borac Banja Luka at home in the Conference League on October 15, and Asteras Tripoli back at home on October 18. Three games, three different competitions, one squad. Tetten's new contract starts paying out against Olympiacos.
