(Yes…. that ftw! thing is starting to get old and annoying, isn’t it? ftw! is the new woot!)

Everything is different now:

I felt that I had to go back to 4-3-3. The 4-4-2 was adequate. It was workmanlike. It was solid. It was occasionally swashbuckling. But it wasn’t me. If it had worked out as well as I’d hoped, I’d stick with it. But I was still conceding the goals, and I was relatively blunted up front.

A few games ago I noticed that Donadel has DMF as an alternate position, so he’s taken the position from the still wet-behind-the-ears Duffy. Bramble is solid at CB. Shaw starts for me now (when he can) in Chairman Mao’s left-sided AMF spot.

And results were immediate. Boy, were they immediate…

Rosenborg have been a bit of a bogey team for me in Division 2. I remember them thumping me 5-1 - or something disgraceful like that - way back at the very start, when I only had Dodo and Stein et al to chase them around the park.

So, my first game with my new re-imagined 4-3-3, and Rosenborg are the opponents. I went 0-1 down in the first five minutes. I could have wept. Was this it? Was I doomed to play badly in Division 2 forever, and blog about it here to the increasing amusement/bemusement of everybody, including myself?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9FTr_UoTmo&rel=1]

Perhaps not. The above goal came just at the right time - immediately after the break. Wee Jimmy Shimizu pops up with a nice mid-range finish, in off the post. Now these are my real PES bread and butter goals - more, please.

De Ridder obliges, only a few minutes later, running centrally from a position on the left wing (how he got over there I don’t know). Another nice mid-range finish, and I held on for the win. Holding on for the win ftw!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXsBhsNSSGI&rel=1]

It was the start of a run of results like no other run I have had so far.

Rosenborg 1-2 Coventry City
Coventry City 4-0 Reading
Olympiacos Piraeus 1-3 Coventry City
Coventry City 2-0 Helsingborg

Played 4. Won 4. Lost 0. Goals scored: 11 Goals conceded: 2.

(At one point I had to visit the General Settings section on the Master League menu to check that I was still playing on Top Player difficulty.)

I’m particularly happy to be scoring goals again. It’s not just the amount of goals I’m now scoring that pleases me; it’s the kinds of goals, too. Traditional PES-style goals. If you’re not scoring them, you don’t know the game yet. Look at this one from Schwarz:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP7iz1YJvC0&rel=1]

(Incidentally, that’s probably the best-quality video I’ve captured with my mobile phone camera. I’m not certain what I did right - probably just zooming in the replay, and slowing it down. Zooming in and slowing down ftw!)

This is Championship form - or it would have been, if I’d started playing like it a bit sooner.

Shutting out the opposition is the key. Clean sheets+goals=results. It’s a mathematical certainty.

Coventry City ftw!

*quivers with excitement, and promises never to use ftw! ever again. Not even ironically*

The 4-4-2 is going well. Not great. Not spectacular. Won 1, Lost 1, Drawn 2. I haven’t scored many goals, but I’ve conceded a few less as well. That was the idea.

Negotiations. I’m playing games at such a rate that they seem to come around every day. Here in my third mid-season Negotiations, again without much in the way of transfer funds, I’ve made the following deals:

DONADEL (CMF, 26) - traded for Van den Berg (good riddance).
BRAMBLE (CB, 28) - traded for Rommedahl (ditto).
BOYD (CF, 26) - traded for Ordaz (not good enough often enough to justify keeping him any longer).

Towards the end of the negotiations period I received an offer for Ettori, another of the Default players who has been nothing but a burden to me. Nothing but albatrosses, the lot of ‘em (Macco slightly excepted). I sold Ettori for a very welcome 3100 points, and resisted the tempation to spend it in the market. I’ll play with what I have for now.

Bramble could be a key signing for me. An experienced player with stats to match. In real life he’s considered a bit of a joke defender, but this is a computer game, not life. PES2008 has some kind of ‘fan popularity’ thing relating to players. I haven’t really taken any notice of it yet, but there’s a letter A next to his name in the post-match screens. Everyone else has C or D. I think this means he really is a key signing. I hope there’s a knock-on effect that’ll boost the team’s performance. I really must read that section of the manual properly later.

Bramble is replacing Mattsson in the First XI.

The other new boys can fill in as required, along with the rest of the squad.

With a bit of defensive discipline and some ruthlessness up front, I’d still be in with a shot at promotion this season. It’s a long shot, admittedly, and in my mind I’m resigned to spending the 2010 season still in Division 2…

But what kind of attitude is that? I could do this.

Mid-table mediocrity. The most dismal phrase in the footballing lexicon.

I win one, I lose one. I go up a few places, I fall a few places. I lose one, I win one. I fall a few places, I go up a few places….

It’s as if I am under some kind of magic spell. I can neither rise nor fall. My team is in some kind of PES stasis field. As idle as a painted oil tanker upon a painted ocean.

I’ve been looking long and hard at my 4-3-3 formation. And I’ve been thinking the unthinkable.

I’m going with the above 4-4-2 formation as my new starting formation for all games. This is a big deal for me.

Duffy is a DMF. Shimizu is a CMF. Chairman Mao and De Ridder are SMFs. I’ve positioned Schwarz slightly deeper than Frutos because the latter is the bigger and better striker right now. Schwarz still gets most of his goals by receiving the ball and running with it, playing one-twos, etc. Frutos is a strong giant of a striker who belongs just in front of Schwarz.

I’ve played 4-3-3 for as long as I can remember. I don’t think I’ve ever seriously tried out any other formation in Master League. Even when struggling in PES5, and for over two seasons now in PES2008, switching the formation to something else has been unthinkable.

Until now. Defending is the key to success in PES2008. Currently, my goals scored tally is an average of almost 1 goal per game. Nothing spectacular, but within operating parameters for a football team.

You would expect to pick up results simply by keeping clean sheets, something I found relatively easy to do in years gone by. In PES5 and PES6, after the tough first campaign or two, I conceded an average of 8 goals per season.

My current goals against tally is an average of almost 2 per game. Defending against the CPU is my problem right now. I’m tired of losing games after having 60% of possession and 15 or 20 shots on goal, only to see the CPU score with all of its 3 shots on goal.

My problem has been stopping the CPU from creating openings in midfield and in front of my defence. Having a lone DMF is all well and good - but he’s got to be good, and he’s got to have good support from the AMFs and, when up against it, from the CFs. Duffy and co. currently are not up to scratch.

I could have tinkered with the positioning and defensive settings in my existing 4-3-3. But I’m thinking right now that a few imaginary lines on a virtual chalkboard are no substitute for having solid bodies placed squarely in the way of the rampaging CPU midfielders and attackers.

I tested the 4-4-2 formation in a couple of Exhibition matches (England vs Germany; England vs Brazil), and I’m quite liking it.

Yes, I feel a bit lost and bewildered when I get the ball up front and there’s only two central strikers to look for. But the two wide midfielders in a 4-4-2 are much better at wing penetration than the more centrally-placed AMFs in my 4-3-3 ever were.

I won the Exhibition games 3-1 and 2-0 on Top Player. Granted, with good players the 4-4-2 might have worked out well, but how will it work with my middling players in Master League? Only one way to find out.

Switching to 4-4-2 at this stage could all go very wrong. But I have a good feeling about it, for some reason.