Truly, Bradley, Deeply Comments Off
Losing in one Cup might be regarded as unfortunate. Losing in two smacks of carelessness… Getting myself knocked out of both Cups was a PES2008 reality check.
It doesn’t matter if you play well in some games, or even if you play brilliantly in most games. You have to perform consistently in every game to win anything in the Master League.
Chelsea are currently riding high at the top of Division 1. They’ve lost just 2 games all season and are 10 points clear of Man Utd in second place. The lesson for me is clear. Thumping a Division minnow 5-0 every now and again is good for morale and good for goal difference. But if I go out in the next game against a team like Blackburn, say, and manage ‘only’ to draw, or even lose, I’m never going to get anywhere.
Now that I am concentrating solely on the league, I have a full squad of players to draw upon for every game.
Before resuming normal week-by-week league life, I made an adjustment to the First XI. Bradley has shown enough quality to convince me that he should replace Muntari as my automatic first-choice DMF.
I was repaid for my faith in Bradley in his first full game in the First XI. I took on Sunderland – my old enemy – and beat them 4-2.
Bradley really does have it all. Strength, balance, shooting. And a nice dribble too. It really is an easy PES year when routinely even I am going on runs like this, and scoring with a few of them:
I want to finish the season in the top 6 at the very least. The top 2 would be a bonus. I think Manchester United are too far ahead of me to catch them now. There are ten games left and 30 points to play for, though, so anything is possible. I need to win all or most of my remaining games and hope that Man Yoo lose enough of theirs to let me catch up. That almost never happens in PES, though. The teams at the top tend to stick there until the end.
I picked up a couple of 1-0 wins, including a valuable one against the team just beneath me in the table, Liverpool. The winner was a nice diving header by Schwarz from a decent cross by Braafheid.
I’m really glad now that I didn’t get rid of Braafheid in the mid-season negotiations. Pacy SBs who can launch dangerous raids down the wings – and also defend a bit – are hard to come by. And I have two. Guimaraes over on the right side continues to grow into a monster of a player. I keep going on about Schwarz, but Guimaraes has been another success story from the pool of young talent that I assembled back in my first couple of otherwise disastrous seasons.
I’m up to third now and should hold steady until the end of the season. It looks like I’ll be playing at the top European table next season. I’m 9 points ahead of the team in 7th place, and I have a superior goal difference to anyone else in the Division.
I’ve scored 54 goals in 28 games this season. Only Man Utd are anywhere near me in terms of goals scored. However, my goals conceded total is among the very worst – only the teams down in the relegation zone have conceded more. Lucky for me I found my shooting boots this season.