Hertfordshire Comments Off
I skipped buying any new players in the mid-season negotiation period. The default players for WE United include some pretty decent strikers and midfielders. The defence is pretty rubbish, though, and the goalkeeper is a clown. I could have spent on a good new keeper or CB, but as I have no realistic chance of getting promoted this season I’m thinking I’ll hold onto my cash and spend big before the start of next season.
Managed to get one game in this morning before I had to lay the PSP aside and do other things. It was my first game after the break, and it was against Hertfordshire (groan).
I beat them quite comfortably in our first fixture at the start of the season, but they were a different prospect this time round. I could hardly get or keep the ball for the first 20 minutes. The game was at their ground. The first portion of away fixtures in ML can be pretty tough. For the last couple of PESes it has seemed to me that CPU home teams have a keep-ball script that you have to overcome by getting the ball and keeping it for a period. It’s in keeping with the series’ much-vaunted realism, I suppose, but it’s mighty annoying.
Hertfordshire scored from a corner just as I was thinking I’d quenched their keep-the-ball frenzy. As sometimes happens the game wouldn’t let me take control of a defender in the six-yard box. Over came the corner and the ball went into the net.
I had about 90% of the possession and pressure for the rest of the half but couldn’t get a goal. Their keeper was on superhuman form. I had a one-on-one that he clawed onto the crossbar. I got to the rebound and tapped shoot, but skied the ball. That was the closest I came.
Straight from the kickoff in the second half I played a through-ball to my wide man and ran down the wing. I was hoping for a cheap double-tap cross goal – and I got it. My striker dived for the header and it hit the back of the net. 1-1.
The rest of the game was a dour midfield struggle. I think I had one clear-cut chance, a shot from an acute angle just outside the box. It whistled wide. The CPU created nothing.
At the end of that, I’ve slipped to 5th in the table. The promotion spots are 12 points away from me now. I still have an outside chance of getting into one but not with this team, I think. Perhaps I should have spent on a fast striker – Obafemi Martins was available, and I know from my last ML game on the PSP that he can be brought to a Division 3 team, albeit at a high price in wages.