The wheels have come off my season. Not in a big way - I’m still in touch with the promotion spots. But it’s been a disappointment after getting off to such a good start.

Hammarby beat me 4-2 at my ground in the second round of the Cup. I went 1-0 up in the game and it would have been enough to take me through on away goals. But Hammerby just steamrollered me in the second half.

I’m 11th in the table and 10 points behind the current 3rd-placed team, Wigan Athletic. I’m only 11 games into a 38-game season, so it’s still feasible that I could haul Coventry City into the top 3 by the end.

I’m scoring enough goals to win and draw key games. But I’m conceding more goals than I’m scoring. I’m conceding ridiculous goals - goals like nothing I’ve ever seen before in any PES game.

A CPU free-kick within 30 yards of my goal is usually as good as a penalty.

Corners continue to be a problem - especially ‘blind’ corners from the opposite side of the pitch where the camera - even on Wide - cuts off my view of the six-yard box. Defending these is a matter of using the radar and some guesswork.

Ad hoc games of pinball take place around my box. My players are mysteriously incapable of passing to any of their team-mates, until a CPU player gets hold of it and rifles in a shot.

Occasionally, any old random CPU player will turn into the superhuman love-child of Maradona, Pele, Michel Platini, and Zinedine Zidane combined, and twisty-turn a slaloming path through my entire team until in on my goalkeeper. And then gently chip the ball into the net.

It’s crazy stuff, some of it.

I can’t complain about my goalkeepers. Friedel and Ivarov have been playing alternate games. They’ve both played really well, considering. One of the big complaints some people have about PES2008 is that the goalkeepers are poor. But I’ve yet to see either of mine palm the ball into the net.

Friedel in particular (still only 18) is shaping up to be a great shot-stopper, just like his real-life counterpart. But for some of his meaty slaps at the ball, my goals-against tally would be a lot higher. Thanks, Brad.

There are other plus-points too. Schwarz is the #1 goalscorer in the Division so far. He has 5 goals. Which doesn’t say much for the Division, but I’ll take it. Shimizu and Traore are joint-4th on the Assists table.

It’s a peculiar season. Neither one thing nor the other at this stage. In the previous two seasons, at least I knew where I was by now. I was bottom of the league.

This season is still in the balance. I’m mid-table. A good run is needed now, I think, for me to have any chance of going up to Division 1.

What a relief. I don’t think I have ever wanted the end of a Master League season more. Getting thumped by almost every team is not much fun. Trying to make things happen with a squad of players that make Tony Adams at his worst look like Maradona at his best is no fun at all.

I actually won a game right at the end of the season. I won it 2-0, with a good header from a corner and then, wonder of wonders, a penalty. It was my first 3 points since before the mid-season negotiations. Things were that bad.

I finished the season bottom of Division 2 by some distance, with a pathetic goal difference and my tail firmly between my legs. At least I had persevered. No reloading or restarting for me. That isn’t how I roll.

My player wage bill would be 9500-odd points. I had 17000-odd points in the bank to spend. I approached the negotiations quite nervously. It’s so easy to overspend and incur a Game Over. It’s also easy to be too cautious and underspend, leaving yourself hamstrung for the first half of the next season. There’s a golden mean which I have become adept at hitting over the years. But rarely before now had it ever been so critical that I get this negotiation period right. My bungled mid-season negotiations had seen to that.

Yes, I had the luxury of a full eight-week period (as opposed to the measly mid-season four weeks). But I still had to be careful. In the first week I had to decide whether to renew several members of my squad’s contracts. This in itself was irritating, as negotiating with your own team - whether you want to extend their contract or not - counts toward the total number of players you can negotiate with, which is limited. As things turned out I was only able to bid for one new player in the first week. I had 31 players in my squad and the maximum allowed is 32.

I headed straight for the Search By Openness To Negotiation category. (Incidentally, it’s nice to see that they spelt Openness correctly this year.) For anyone who is struggling on Master League, I heartily recommend heading to this list of players. Only a few of the players here could be classed as world-beaters (and even if they are, you almost certainly won’t be able to afford them) but they are exactly what you need to get a Default squad out of the doldrums. I should have concentrated on this list of players in the mid-season instead of pursuing Mathieu, but the past is past now.

(On the subject of Mathieu, I did try to get him again but now his team doesn’t even want to negotiate a trade-in deal with me. I can’t afford an outright bid. I’ll get him next time, hopefully. He’s still only 24 years old in the game, so I have a good few seasons left to try yet. )

Just because a player appears on the Openness list it doesn’t automatically mean you’re a certainty to sign him. More often that not, if you can drum up the cash and/or a player to sweeten the deal, you’ll get your man. But it’s never a sure thing.

Without further ado, here are the players I placed bids for over the eight negotiation weeks, and got:

Suzuki (DMF/CWP)
De Ridder (WF/SMF)
Mao Molina (AMF)

These are all good solid midfielders. I do keep going on about the desirability of having midfielders, and that their solidity be unquestionable… ‘Cos it’s important, is why.

I also picked up two players from the peculiarly-named ‘Unbelonging’ list (i.e. unattached and out-of-contract players). This is another favourite stop-off point for the cash-strapped and struggling Master League player. In many ways I prefer it to the Openness list. You only have to offer a contract. There are no transfer fees or exchanges involved:

Klavan (SB)
Rommedahl (WF)

Klavan is a left-sided SB who will easily displace Ruskin in my starting line-up, wonder goals notwithstanding.

I also picked up yet another youngster from the New Players section. He’s a 17-year-old Brazilian SB (right-sided) called Guimaraes. His stats are already better than good players a decade his senior, and the only way is up. I have high hopes for this player. I can see him playing in my team for 15 seasons.

You cannot acquire players without getting rid of some. Especially when you have a bloated squad like mine is. All of these players departed:

Baumann (sold)
Lieberman (sold)
Castolo (traded)
Gutierrez (traded)
Lothar (released)
Ceciu (released)
Stein (released)
Huylens (released)

I usually dislike releasing players. It seems a waste when you can trade them in for slightly-better players in the future. But in PES2008 the penalty for releasing players is comparatively low - 40 or 60 points or thereabouts, as opposed to the hundreds of points in previous games. I also wanted to get my wage bill down, as well as make room for other players in the future. Positioning myself for a good mid-season negotiation period next season does no harm either.

So, six players have come in. I’m happy with my acquisitions. I think I have had a good negotiations period. Admittedly I would have liked to get a good young goalkeeper, but I didn’t see one that immediately caught my eye, and time ran out. I deliberately refrained from getting a striker, as a couple of my new midfielders can also play up front, and I have decided to start playing Shimizu as an out-and-out CF anyway. I’ll be looking for a GK, a CF, and a CB next time.

After a lot of agonising in the Formations screen, this is my new First XI:

I’ll keep Rommedahl on the bench for now. These First XIs at this stage are so provisional anyway. Fatigue, injury and suspensions all mean that it’s rarely the same from one game to the next.

I did play one pre-season friendly, against a randomly-chosen side called The Goliaths. They beat my new team 1-0. I didn’t care. It was only a five-minute match (I temporarily changed the match length because I was so impatient to get the new season going). And I saw enough from my new team to know that the season ahead is going to be a very different prospect than last. Schwarz, playing out on the left for the first time, even had a good game, and I should have scored with him at least once.

One last thing that I did in the close season: I changed my away kit to a Real Madrid-style all white. The home kit stays Sky Blue, always.

So now for the new season.