Season two is fast coming to a climax, we are at the business end with just 10 matches left to play, if you recall, two weeks ago we had just lost in the Championship play-off final, this season is a ‘must-be-promoted’ season.
It didn’t start well, we were hovering in the bottom half of the table after 6 or so matches, we weren’t losing many, but draws were too common, often 1-1, or 0-0, it suddenly seemed as if we had forgotten how to score.
I let several fringe players leave, and Rick, our talismanic RMF with an eye for goal, had gone back to his parent club after a years long loan, we needed to recruit, fast, before the end of the August window, we hade to start scoring and converting draws into wins.
We managed to sign a few players, Kean (CF) the main signing, along with Arroé (AMF). Lichtensteiner (RB), Bednarek (GK), Berisha (CMF), Garcia (LMF) and Goncalves (RMF). Quite a few signings but they were brought in to replace fringe players in the same positions, who i had sold oin or released to free up wages.
The above players were also all signed on free transfers too, with just the wages to pay, all except Kean, so net outlay was minimal.
Here is our current starting line up:
A very modest side, with Kean being the standout player at 78 OVR.
It took about 6 or 7 games for Kean to find his form, I was wondering whether breaking up last season’s strike partnership of Gassama and Mbenza was a wise choice, but once Kean started scoring, he hasn’t stopped since and has formed as formidable duo with Gassama up top, as can be seen in the evidential stats below:
25 goals in 33 matches – prolific, and still with 10 matches to play, as you can see, far and away the best striker in the division at present, and with him and Gassama heading up the top scorers table, I pray for no injuries to either of them in the run in.
Their goals, and others performances of course, have helped us climb rapidly up the table, just to side step for a moment though, I’ve always said Konami’s attention to detail is poor, and here are another two cases in point, Kean has 25 goals from 33 matches, yet his season average rating is just 6.9!!! He’s scored hat-tricks, braces, and yet gets an average over 36 games of 6.9, very poor.
Also, we went on a run of 13 matches unbeaten, 11 of them wins, and yet the commentary will only ever say “They are now 5 matches unbeaten”, it seems they only ever recorded that one line, you could be 150 matches unbeaten and Champion and Drury will still only ever say 5 matches, again, very poor.
Anyways, back to the league position, a culmination in more goals, and increase in Team spirit has seen us surge up the table to the position shown below:
Third, with 10 games left, we have just beaten league leaders Palace 3-1, which closed the gap to 6 points after a disappointing 2-1 defeat at Preston in the hammering rain, saw us drop a few points, so it’s still all to play for.
As a side note, one which I’m sure you’ve all experienced, the Team Spirit (TS) rating is a weird entity, I totally get the theory behind it, and quite like the idea, a new team should have to gel, new signings should affect the team cohesion and see TS drop, playing players out of position should have an effect, I get all that, and i applaud it, but still think the whole system needs tweaking, as the game plays completely differently when your TS is below 75.
It’s like a cut off point, below that and players are slow, cumbersome, dont make runs, its like wading through treacle, above that, especially when in the 90’s and the game feels great, it’s night and day.
So season two should be finished, WILL be finished by the next post, next Thursday, hopefully have some good news to report, which i may even post in the comments as an update, I’m ready for a change of scenery now and to play in the Premier league, possibly a difficulty increase too, and would welcome the challenge of escaping relegation.
I will leave you with a video comp of some nice goals from recent matches, and sandwiched in the middle is a clip not of a goal, but a nice slaloming speedy dribble from my CM and captain, Scowen, that shows off a nice burst of pace, change of direction to swerve the defender then a low driven daisy cutter that whistles inches wide, there is a distinct method to effective dribbling, and it’s taken me 2 seasons to get the nack of it, but when you do it properly, you can really beat defenders and create space.
FIFAFX.com 
Some lovely goals there Paul, great variety. And the stadiums look really stunning especially with that low camera angle, although I’m still not sure how you can aim shots and passes with it. Disappointed that awful ‘more and more and more’ commentary line is still there, got sick of it last year without even playing the game! Free kicks still too easy?
Thanks for clarifying the FIFA21 free upgrade for PS5, easy as I was hoping. PS5 looking good, only played the free bundled game Astro so far. Controller vibrating manically all the time; it’s funny that a couple of console generations ago this feature was on the verge of being scrapped for being too old fashioned, now ‘haptic feedback’ is all the rage
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ABBEYHILL -Thanks, I much prefer the low slung angled broadcast cam, I find the standard wide style camera in PES and fifa just so boring.
FK’s aren’t as easy, keepers save more but they’re still a bit too easy. As FK’s against you are still 100% on target every single time, its like a separate mini game.
It doesn’t come down to how good the AI FK taker is, what his place kicking, swerve power,technique stats are, if he’s on form etc, its 100% a goal every time against you unless you time the wall jump exactly right, its monotonous.
I’ve heard another of reviews say the Astro game is a MUST play for a tech demo of how good the dual sense controller is.
In good news, I today managed to secure myself a disc based PS5, For delivery before Xmas.
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Yay!
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Thought you’d be pleased Turf, still interested in the PS4 then?
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I’m afraid to say yes. I thought I could let it go and turn to more worthwhile pursuits but nah, I want to play shooty Killy things and random sports. Don’t worry if you’ve changed the plan, but if you still want to offload then great.
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Another great thing about the PS5, that I hadn’t realised before it arrived, is that PS Plus members get a load of triple A PS4 games to download for free, the likes of God of War, Uncharted 4, Fallout 4, Detroit, Resi Evil 7, Bloodborne etc. Any views on Fallout 4, Turf, have a feeling that’s your sort of thing?
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Abbeyhill – it could have been, I think NG and Darryl got into it, and Werd is probably down some wormhole forever making stuff out of bottle tops, but I just couldn’t get past the horribly bleak opening. I spent a couple of weeks doing stuff but it just seemed all gloom and I never clicked with the character (or the map setup). It just wasn’t a Skyrim for me, no real motivation to do it – like reading a novel where you realise after 50 pages the main character you are meant to root for is actually quite unpleasant. Shame.
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ah, cheers Turf. I had imagined Skyrim and Fallout as the same type of experience but having watched a trailer it does indeed all look pretty bleak. Kids are predictably just playing Minecraft and Fortnite on the PS5 so far, ignoring the new stuff!
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Abbeyhill – It is a game I have re-visited many times and am currently playing it on the XBox One with a mod called Sim Settlements 2. I pretty much ignore the main quest and instead spend my time building settlements that I unlock and setting up systems to trade between the various ones I have under my control. I also don’t fast travel and wander during the daytime and sleep at night for authenticity. It keeps me happy anyway. Since re-starting a few weeks back I have put about 25 hours in. The good thing with a game like that is you can play it however you want.
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Turf – No probs. I am expected to get my PS5 by 15th Dec, so if you want the PS4, I will do my best to get it to you before xmas, unless you want to wait until after.
I have a range of games, not sure if you want those too?
Abbeyhill – That’s a nice touch, I like the 2 free full price games you get every month with a PSN Plus sub currently, theres some great titles given away there but to get a slew of them free with the PS5 is Pretty cool.
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Paul – emailed you on the hooj one if that’s still used?
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Yep thats fine Turf. I’ll go check it out.
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Big, Big developments in my ML career, looking to get the new post up a bit early this week, maybe today or tomorrow.
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Big developments? – must be a club move given the ‘change of scenery’ comment. Glad you’ve tired of that village of the damned.
Just as an additional community query to the side chat Paul and I are having. If I buy a new PS4 and want to still be able to access the games I bought on my (now mini turf) PS4 is the best way to use that old account id to sign in to the new machine and set it as my primary, and then create a new user profile? So the old PS4 with all my games on it would be secondary but still have all of mini turf’s fortnite shite on it?
I’ve looked this all up online and there seem various suggestions depending on if you are using psplus, want it to be family restricted, etc. My only concern is not creating a situation where we both can’t be online together.
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Turf – exactly what you said. Sign into a new Ps4 using your primary account that has all your games on, then create a sub account. You can then use 2 different accounts at same time but still all access your library of games.
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Just finished thursdays post, which will be up a day earlier, at 12 lunchtime tomorrow.
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Cool cheers Paul, knew you’d know.
Enjoying the modest frippery of new star soccer’s app gaming cousin new star cricket. After starting in the local Cheshire leagues I’m currently starring for Melbourne. No long term interest but for five mins with a cup of tea it’s decent.
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I loved new star soccer Turf. Great for long train journeys etc. Very addictive.
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