There’s a cryptic clue in this week’s post title, all is revealed later on in the post.
Well, season 2 has come to a barn storming climax, and has honestly been one of the most memorable, and enjoyable ML seasons I’ve ever played.
You may recall from the last post, that we drew Juventus in the KO stage of the UCL, well a last minute winner at home in the first leg gave us a 3-2 lead heading into the 2nd leg over in Turin.
Kane was injured for this match, and a few players were off form, and it showed, we lost 2-0 without ever really imposing ourselves on the tie, to crash out of the Champions League 4-3 on aggregate.
Our league form had been superb, with 7 wins and 3 draws from out last 10 matches, which coincided with Man City, who were racing away with the league from day one, suffering a 6 match spell of defeats and draws, at one point the gap was reduced to 5 points and we had moved into second place, although this didn’t last, with Chelsea showing their strength and pushing us back into third, and City sorting themselves out to recover and solidify their place at the top.
This is how the season finished:
A respectable 3rd place finish, one higher than last season and automatic UCL qualification, job done. These are the promoted and relegated teams:
Brighton and Leeds come back up, after going down last season, joined by Stoke.
We also had representatives in the Team of the Season, which reflects our superb performances.
Just after the January Transfer window, PSG came sniffing about for Harry Kane, now 29, and doing my head in with his often inability to stay onside, I was considering cashing in, valued at around £94 mil, so I thought I’d do some cheeky negotiation, and eventually managed to get PSG up to £120mil for Kane, but I had one last card, a long shot at best, but I then threw a curve ball and offered Kane plus £38mil for Kylian MBappé, and to my total surprise, they accepted as Mbappe was keen on our club and wanted to test himself in the Premier League.
With a brand new impressive stadium, Champions League football looking certain next season, and French national teammates in our squad, Mbappe was certainly interested, but……. the salary demands.
He obviously wanted a hike on his already gargantuan PSG salary, and after several tight negotiations, he said he would sign for £436,000 per week!!
I initially baulked at this figure, half a million quad per week, for a football player, but then realised, the £38 mil transfer fee we paid, plus Kane, was doable, just, and we had around £500k p/w in our wage budget, but we would be recouping over £300k P/w for Selling Kane on, so in effect, Mbappe was only costing us 38 mil plus just over 100 grand a week, I snapped at the deal, and Mbappé signed.
Next port of call after the euphoria of agreeing a deal for the world’s best CF, was the small matter of an FA Cup game, not just any game but the FA Cup FINAL, against Liverpool, at Wembley.
Below I present you with the FULL game footage, if you cant be bothered to watch it all, then there’s action right at the end of the first half, and the second half is an absolute barnstormer!
What a great way to end such a memorable season, and what a game!!!
Destroyed Liverpool for 20 minutes, with 4 quickfire goals, only for them to ramp it up and mount a comeback, we was riding our luck at times in that second half.
Many readers of this blog, and the old NG Chronicles, will probably know of my disgust at the lack of effort shown by Konami in the presentation of matches, and key games, and a massive pet annoyance was the complete absence of a trophy when you win the league or cup, well how beautiful did that FA Cup trophy look in all it’s shiny gloriousness?!
And the scenes that followed, all those cut scenes with players celebrating, lifting the manager aloft, parading the trophy….
All thanks to the patches and mods (immersion mod) that have been made by average joe PES fans, that make the game 1 billion times more fun, enjoyable and rewarding, superb stuff.
Will finish off with a small selection of goals from the back end of the season, and a look at next seasons new kits.
FIFAFX.com 
This all looks and sounds great Paul. There are a few key players in the game that really handle distinctively and I suspect mbappe is one of them. Great signing! Curious if he’s going to be worth the money for you.
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#1 – MBappé’s Debut came in the Community shield math vs Man City, 5 mins in his dribbling skill won a FK, which insigne curled into the top corner, and provided another assist late on whilst also hitting the post himself, quite a productive debut and a big contribution towards yet another trophy.
For 38 mil he’s certainly started well!
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Is he as insanely good as in fifa? (Or at least ultimate team). Found him to have michael Owen-era PES levels of pace when facing him in the EA title, but never played with or came up against in my brief PES foray.
Can’t say I’m remotely bothered about this fixture tonight. I don’t get the whole beat the Scots thing. I get the whole beat the English business, but I think utter indifference to the other home nations is possibly a bigger put down. I was a bit bored by the croatia game.
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just sat down and watched the entire footage Paul, spectacular stuff. Did not see your 4 goals coming at all (aside from reading the blog post first!) as Liverpool looked much more threatening in the first half. ‘We are the Champions’ over the trophy footage really nice feature of the patch, takes us all the way back to PES2 days. Glad to hear PES still has that great feeling when you sign a top player and he just feels different
Turf – didn’t even bother watching it, suspected it would be crap. Although I’m an England supporter I was quite happy to see Scotland get something after some of the over-the-top predictions from pundits/social media etc. If I remember correctly you’re a big fan of Skyrim, do you think it still holds up today? Will be spending more time in London going forward so thinking about getting it for the Switch
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Indeed abbeyhill. I think it does, yes. I’m currently well into elder scrolls online which is very different in terms of experience, all those onliners running around, Skyrim can be a very solitary and personal journey – a bit like some found ROD2. I started a number of lives with different aims – one to do the full story, others simply to live a life as a scoundrel outlaw or honest protector of the weak. The mods can be brilliant for changing the game, and are free with none of yer Paul clever business. Even now I’d find places I’ve never seen, and some of the stories are very emotional – think FF7 and that moment. The day one of my chosen companions died was one of my most intense gaming experiences. Playing ‘dead means dead’ can also ramp up the tension. Yes, the timelines can get buggered up, and quests sometimes glitch, but overall there’s never been a game to touch it for me. And now it’s enhanced graphically, plus the mods can do that too.
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abbey- I concur in bucket loads, still play it on the ps4, along with fallout 4 on the ps5, as with turf I still find places not previously discovered in previous play throughs. One if my all time top 10( and I’m strict!)
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Sounds ideal, thanks Turf/Werd. After the disappointment of Horizon Zero Dawn this could be much more like my sort of open world game. Will let you know how it goes……
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First Big trophy.
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Turf – MBappe is superb in PES but nothing like the untouchable robot-like destroyer droid he is in FIFA, as, and here I say it, PES game play is much more realistic.
if you take a bad touch, or sprint when you shouldn’t or dont shield the ball right, then he gets dispossessed like any other player, whereas in FIFA he just glides past players and scores from 40 yards 6 times a match.
But in PES, use him properly, get n behind players and use that 94 pace and 94 acceleration to burst past players and you get him in on goal very often, and his finishing is superb, he definitely feels different, and feels like MBappe, and enjoying playing with him and Son up top, pace galore, but not in an abusing way, PES doesn’t allow that.
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Abbeyhill – Thanks for the footage comments, the patch adds so much, it just makes it so much of a richer experience, I’ve got a few additional mods such as the MyMLTeam Mod which gives players, managers, staff etc all custom team branded proper tracksuits, training ground graphics etc, Immersion Mod which adds a ton of unused cutscenes for matches, dressing rooms, stadiums, celebrations etc. so all adds up along with the patch to make PES21 the game Konami SHOULD be releasing, but dont.
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Just a head sup, if anybody is looking for something new to play, then humble bundle site have some really good deals on at the moment. https://www.humblebundle.com/
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Ooh, PES2022 demo out, anyone had a go?
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Abbeyhill its not a demo, its purely an online test of their servers, using the mobile phone ver of PES graphics, new post coming up soon, delayed as been so busy today, i touch on it in there
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