For the first time in five seasons, I completed the four-week mid-season negotiation period without signing any new players. That’s how it has to be sometimes.

It wasn’t for the want of trying. I need new players. My squad is a little top-heavy. I have a good First XI, with several established stars and stars-in-the-making (such as Marcos, pictured left). There are some good players in the rest of the squad; a few of them are great players, who I leave out of the First XI for other reasons.

Shaw, with his dodgy Stamina and Body Balance, is a case in point. He’s come on a lot in the past season, as I’ve spent two pre-seasons training him on nothing but Stamina and Body Balance. He’s only a season or so away from being an automatic first choice again.

But looking at players such as Boyd, Folan, Frutos (all three are big, lumbering kinds of strikers, long past their best); Weir and Cafu (Cafu in particular has been somewhat disappointing; he has a shallow development curve that doesn’t peak for about eight more years yet); and even my old warhorse Donadel (despite his excellence in my Division 2 struggles) - all of these have to go, I think, and be replaced by players who can perform reliably week in, week out, if I’m to have the kind of squad that can challenge for trophies in Division 1.

So I’m not buying new players any more just for the sake of buying them. That’s a routine you get into when you start out with the Default players in Master League. They’re so rubbish that you become focused on getting any new players - doesn’t matter who, just anyone - to replace them. Anyone else is better than the Defaults. It takes a few seasons to shake the feeling during Negotiation periods that you must, must, MUST buy new players no matter what.

Armed with my new Team Ranking - ‘C’ - I hoped to at least get past first base in my usual attempt to buy Mathieu. (If and when I finally do get Mathieu, I will speak at length about why this player is so important - even talismanic - to me in PES.) His club has so far blocked all efforts to negotiate directly with the player. This time, however… This time, permission was granted. I was talking to Mathieu!

I slapped in a hefty bid straightaway. I looked down my list of players and decided that Mathieu’s club should find Frutos+7000 points completely irresistible. Mathieu himself should be unable to resist a three-year contract worth 1300 salary points.

I always bring the length of the contract down when I think a player might be difficult to sign for the full five years. After a shorter contract, the player gets a chance to negotiate with you for a higher salary a lot sooner.

Some tipsters in the wider PES community recommend offering key players one-year contracts at ridiculously high wages. They report success using this method, but how crippled is their wages budget afterward? If they’ve offered Thierry Henry, say, a one-year deal at 3000 salary points, after the year is up he’s never going to agree to take anything less than 3000. You’d have to offer 3100 or more to keep him. Then you’re stuck with that ridiculous figure (the salary, not Henry…) for good. Unless you ship him off. In which case, why the fuss to get him in the first place?

So as much as I value Mathieu (and any other great players I’ll be going for in the future) I’m not going to threaten the stability of my entire Master League career by offering them silly wages. No player is worth sending your budget all out of whack for. It’s Master League, not Mathieu League.

I went to the next week, all excited. I hadn’t even looked at any other players. I thought: this is it! I’ve got Mathieu. Bwahaha, as they say.

I was disappointed to see a notification message saying ‘Negotiations broken down’ instead of the hoped-for ‘SUCCESS’. However I was cheered to see an encouraging message in the main menu window. It looked as if I was on the right road, in the ball-park, and so on. I just had to make the right bid, evidently.

I went back into negotiations, and this time offered the club Braafheid+7000 points, and Mathieu himself a two-year deal worth 1350 points. It was a wrench to contemplate getting rid of Braafheid - he’s been a great SB for me so far. But I figured that the prospect of getting a really good, rising star might tip Mathieu’s club’s hand. I thought the two-year deal on offer to Mathieu would clinch it.

Again to the next week, and again no joy. There were two weeks left. I started to think I’d better look at a few other players. It might not be the time for Mathieu after all. My Team Ranking was probably the culprit. Mathieu just didn’t want to come to me right now. His current club was ranked ‘B’. Mathieu himself was an ‘A’-ranked player.

I made bids for Mathieu, and again for Micah Richards. Just the two of them. (I checked my List again and tried to negotiate for Maldini (a 20-year-old youth at this stage of my ML), who is at Manchester United and not really playing for them. Man Utd refused to negotiate.)

Went to the next week, and the Mathieu and Richards deals had both broken down. I concluded that it was the players themselves who didn’t want to come to me right now. I got the message. I gave up for now. I didn’t want any other players. I wanted to hold onto the excess points and try for Mathieu and Richards again in the off-season. I went past the final negotiation week and into Week 19 of the season without placing any new bids.

Despite knowing that I don’t have to buy new players in every single negotiation period, I did feel that I’d wasted this one. I could and probably should have looked for another top-drawer striker. A superb CB would also have come in handy. The dead wood in my squad is still there, gathering dust. They only play when there is absolutely no one else available, which isn’t very often.

I also feel that I have a few too many players in the squad. 32 players is the maximum size allowed, and having 32 players limits my opportunities to get new players from the Youth and Unbelonging lists. At the end of the season I’ll be looking to get the squad down from 32 players to about 26 players. Make room for the next generation.

For now, it’s back to the ups and downs of my season. I took a look at the Calendar before Week 19, and was shocked to see two games per week for the next several weeks. Of course, when I won the Division 1 Cup last season, I automatically qualified for the PES equivalent of the UEFA Cup - the European Masters Cup. Caught up in a tense relegation battle at the time, I hadn’t realised.

So. Two games per week forever, eh? No problem…

Ahhh… I found that missing screenshot of my league position. It shows the state of play going into the last three games. It was tucked away in a sub-sub-folder on my PC along with photos of my best friend’s wedding two years ago. Go figure, as they say.

I’m 3 points clear of the relegation zone with three games to play. My goal difference has come down to a workable level. (See Celtic on the bottom with just three wins all season? Guess who they got two of those wins against. Go on, guess.)

This morning I played the critical last few games of the Division 1 League season and the Division 1 Cup Final. It was a very interesting session of play. I’ll post about the League separately later today. For now I want to concentrate on the Cup.

Last night I overcame Manchester United in the semis after a 0-0 draw at my ground and a 1-0 win at theirs. The goal I scored was notable for a couple of reasons. Here it is:

That’s the first goal of its kind that I have ever scored in any PES game. Really. I meant it when I said that I’m not a dribbler. The people who are complaining about these kinds of goals being too easy in next-gen PES2008 might have a point.

I’m still not capable (or really willing) to play like that all the time, so hopefully it won’t become a universal get-out-of-jail card for me. But it is a worry. If I can do it, I can only imagine what players who routinely used to do this in previous PES games must be doing. No wonder so many have said they’ve traded in their copies of PES2008 for FIFA08, or gone back to PES5 or PES6. Hmmm.

So it was Liverpool in the Final. Before starting the game, there was one important thing I had to do. I had to change my First XI. When I started this blog I was naive and never dreamed that it would attract commenters, or that those comments and suggestions would influence my decisions in playing the game. But I also never dreamed I would struggle with PES2008 to the extent that I have.

A consensus seemed to emerge over the past several days. Shore up the defence. Pick midfielders with better strength and body balance. Concentrate more on defending - you don’t have to go charging in. And lots more along those lines. Thanks, all.

I moved the defence upfield a notch or two, and brought the AMFs back a similar distance. By playing the defence deep and the AMFs too far ahead of the DMF, I was inviting the almost constant pressure I came under in most games.

Suzuki had to go from the CB position. Thinking back now I have no idea why I continued to play him while Felipe was sitting on the bench. Pride? Almost certainly.

After careful deliberation I decided I could afford no more than one show pony in the AMF slots. It had to be Shaw on the left. Djiba - poor, neglected Djiba with his high stamina and body balance (high compared to Shimizu, anyway) - came in on the right.

And as for the DMF slot… well, it finally had to be done: Donadel is retired to the bench and Muntari takes his place. Forgive me, Donadel. Don’t look at me like that. Cheer up - look what happened to you:

Up front, Chiesa on the right is another player I’ve probably stuck with for too long due to misplaced pride. Schwarz was relatively blunted out on the left, which is a position more suited to a nippy striker who can do a passable impression of a winger when called for. Poor old Schwarz lumbering down the wing… Let’s not dwell on the past, eh.

So, with my all-new, all-improved First XI, how was I going to get on - in the Cup Final first of all? An instant heavy defeat - requiring more work on the drawing board - or instant success?

Gulp. I won the D1 Cup Final, hammering Liverpool 4-0!

Look at those stats! Liverpool’s world-class stars barely had a kick of the ball. I think Kewell might have had a glancing header at one point. (When I was distracted by a car horn in the street outside. Otherwise it would never have happened.)

My players were like a team at last - a team with a proper spine: Felipe, Muntari, Djiba, Schwarz…

None of my goals were ‘all that’ - each one was crafted, though, with passing and movement (pass and move is how I like to play - no, how I love to play - PES). A header and a snapshot and a scramble and a deft finish from the edge of the box - those kinds of goals. Reyes, Schwarz, Djiba(!), and Reyes again were the scorers. (Leading me to ask myself yet more soul-searching questions about why I’ve left Reyes on the bench most of the season.)

And not a single yellow card.

After the game I was very, very happy to see my Team Ranking progress bar shoot up almost to the end. I’m about this far >-< from going up to rank C. Another couple of wins will do it.

It’d be great to get those wins in the final league games of the season. The Cup is all well and good, and the performance was amazing, but I’ve had these kinds of moments in PES2008 before. I’ve always got up only to fall down again. Would that happen this time? Only one way to find out…

Two draws and a defeat heading into the 2010 mid-season negotiations leaves me still perilously close to the drop zone. I need better players urgently. It would make a hell of a difference. I took a quick break to play the first few games of an International Tournament with the same formation as my ML team but with international-class players, and noticed the difference immediately. I could actually defend, for one thing. Scoring goals isn’t really my problem in Master League.

Needing and wanting better players is one thing; getting them is quite another.

Yet again I’m seriously hampered by my team ranking. My ranking is ‘D’. It’s been ‘D’ since the start. What this means is that I cannot even place bids for very good players. REJECTED is the word I see eight times out of ten after asking a club’s permission to negotiate.

A DMF with the Middle Shooting ability is #1 on the wish-list this time around. Nothing else matters. Donadel is still doing fine - not great as in the latter part of last season, but fine. Good enough. What he lacks is real bite in the tackle, and anything like a reliable pair of shooting boots.

I went for and got MUNTARI (traded for El Moubarki+5000 points).

I considered putting him straight into the First XI in place of Donadel. But it’s weird… I couldn’t do it. Muntari is the better player in almost every respect (not least his shooting), but Donadel did so much for my team last season that he has become like a talisman to me. And get this: if I dropped Donadel I’d feel that I would be betraying him. In other words I have formed a sentimental attachment to a virtual football player in a computer game. They do academic studies about this kind of thing.

ORELLANO is a famous old PES name.

I picked him up from the Youth list. He was a moody so-and-so in PES6 and wouldn’t come to me until he was about 26, despite just hanging around in the Unbelongings for season after season.

BRADLEY is another fresh face from the Youth list - a CMF/SMF with Middle Shooting. It’s called Shooting from Distance in the search menus but good old Middle Shooting in all other menus. Sigh.

And finally I got some geezer called DJIBA, another CMF/SMF player with Middle Shooting packed in his boots.

Amazingly I was able to trade Burchet+2000 points for him. Djiba’s not really very good (hence the low points price in the exchange), but he’ll be useful for trading up at another level if he doesn’t work out.

With the departure of El Moubarki and Burchet, I’m left with just three of the original Default squad: Ivarov, Stein and Huylens.

Ivarov plays in the odd game when Friedel and Kim U Don’t are both unfit, and he does well enough for me to keep him on at least until the end of this season. Stein will be good exchange fodder in the future. And Huylens is retiring at the end of this campaign.

I’m worried again that I might have wasted the mid-season negotiations. Of the four newcomers, only Muntari is likely to be of immediate use.

It’s usual for me to struggle in my first top-flight season, but this year I’m struggling slightly more than usual. I want to get some clear blue water between me and that relegation zone as soon as possible.