As Mushroom25 states, the only flights from north-west England to Athens are with with Olympic, from Manchester.
I've just spent some time trying to find any suitable alternatives. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any cheap ways to get to Samos.
The only purpose of this post is to advise you that, if you ever want to do this journey when the summer schedules apply, your best route might be as follows:
1. Thomas Cook flight from Manchester to Izmir
2. Taxi to Kusadasi (or take the airport bus into IIzmir and then the local bus to Kusadasi)
3. Ferry to Samos
Unfortunately, the Thomas Cook flights are 'summer only' (and there are no alternative flights to Izmir), so this information won't be of any immediate use to you but I thought that it might help you at some time in the future.
Chris