Apologies for the missing post last week, i planned to post it up Friday, but after rewiring all my gaming/cinema room tech due to fitting a new surge protected socket, I then went to fire up the gaming PC and couldn’t get a signal out of it, spent 45 mins turning it on, off, etc but no good, and due to other things I had to do, I had to leave it.
Turns out where Id moved stuff about, the HDMI cable had pulled out of the back of the AV receiver that the PC runs into, that was all, Schoolboy !
Been a busy week so not that much to report on the ML front, I removed the game play patch I was using, it does some good things, but also introduces other issues which were agitating me, so back on Konami Vanilla GP.
Team Spirit (TS) is slowly increasing, and it really is a ball ache to play ML with a TS rating under 75, even there its a bit shoddy still, it affects runs, positioning, passes, tackles, everything, and not surprisingly, as my TS has increased, results have started picking up a bit, including a 3-0 away demolition of Chelsea, who were sat in 3rd place.
Europa League Spots are going to be our best hope this season I feel use it as a springboard, sign some better quality and give it a go next season.
We need some better quality out wide on both flanks, as I prefer to play Saint-Maximin as a Support Striker, using his pace to get in behind.
We’ve had a bid for Rafinha of Leeds Utd accepted, he will join in January, which will give us more pace on the right side.
It is still such a joy to play PES21 with its slower more considered game play, after the frantic rush and attack of FIFA 22, but I’m still getting caught out by the FIFA muscle memory, and the way you need to play PES is vastly different.
Its a nice thing to have a PES modded up ML on the burner though to pick up and play when the urge arises.
I also downloaded Madden 22, I got it free as a subscriber to EA play, the presentation is superb, so detailed, and I enjoyed the few games I play, I just have absolutely no clue which play to pick and when so mainly play a passing game, going for the hollywood touchdown pass everytime.
A small handful of goals, nothing special but a nice variation from my last couple of games:
FIFAFX.com 
Started Newcastle with the usual defeats and out of the cup but happy with the transfers I’ve made, bodes well if they let me carry on.
Meanwhile just uploading final three videos – what I’m calling the Casteldine collection – lightweight yes, but that left foot…. I want Auxerre to know what they lost when they called time on both our careers.
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Castledine seemed to have been granted the freedom of the entire left flank in your French Ligue 2, Turf. Let’s see how he copes on a cold November evening at Stoke
trying to work out your formation – a sort of diamond 3-4-3?
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Yes, that’s a fair approximation abbeyhill – I think the custom setting comes out as 3-1-3-3 or similar but it is effectively 3 CBs (I went Turf old school), a DMF, Rice the no nonsense CMF in the middle then AMFs either side with Arcas in a SS role ‘in the hole’ before the 2 CFs (an elongated rhombus?). Newcastle line up the same. It seems to give Arcas a lot more space and slightly overwhelms the AI press. Still the same issue of not getting into the box though, hence the longer range goals. I do get sucker punched with the ball between the CBs as well.
I watched some guy’s videos the other day of his top 20 PES 2021 goals, called himself the king of PES or the like. Every one was using Ronaldo, Neymar, etc etc – my thought was exactly the same ‘ok, now try doing that with Rice on a cold November….’
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The Championship is tough – don’t know how long I’m going to survive as teams are just that bit better than other second divisions. It’s a bit disheartening thinking I’m possibly grinding and building a decent team only for the inevitable but thank God for Luton Town – below me and desperate enough to sack their manager and offer me the job after 7 games!
There’s a decent goal up on the YouTube site – shame we can’t get them up here now, I used to like the Lloyd videos and everyone’s goal of the month contenders.
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Are you guys all starting these MLs on super star? I can’t get any enjoyment out of the game in that level. Usually I go professional for a couple seasons, then top player and eventually settle on super star. The CPU cheating is driving me bonkers, really hard to cope (as always)
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Agree entirely #1 – I have lost 4 matches where the added time said +1 or +2 and the AI has scored after 4 or 5 minutes. I have also never had a penalty in well over 100 matches. The run of the mill cheating is just expected now. But I’m staying on superstar because IT’S THE LAW…. I know already I’m going to get sacked from Newcastle. I’m bottom of the league and mid season they asked me to finish 21st. That means at least 3 wins if the other teams don’t gain any more points and I only have 1 so far. I will finish bottom or second bottom at best. When it happens though I’m carrying on with a new club as I don’t want to go through the grind again.
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testing – my last two comments have disappeared on posting
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unlce turf, it is not guranteed you get sack, there are times the gme takes mercy on you. It is a random number % chance I’m sure. most often though, yes you get the sack for failing target
after all my time on pes 2021 I have tried Legend difficulty for the first real time. I like it! It is almost like starting again. It is ruthless. I am going to be sacked in my first master league on Legend nd after all this time it feels good to struggle again.
on legend I started la Liga, Elche, original club players. I have had enough of defaults for now, although I bought castledine from the free agent list. record is something like P15 W1 D1 L13 F5 A30 and I love it
#1, I started with pes 2021 on professional and only went up levels when I was able to win most match easily. The game cheats like mad though. after all this time I will not have it from anyone when they say that thers no scripting in pes, pes 2021 is one of the worst pes for it. example when you are leading there is a forced time of the match when you just not allowed t clear the ball from your box, I have had so many debates about this , yes it is to be under pressure byt they do it by making your players play passes badly and I don’t like that. but find a football game that dioesnt do things like it and is worth playing,
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Years ago when I was reviewing games as a sideline I’d played every PES but not talked about it like on here (I think we were up to pes6 or something). Someone responded to my review by saying ‘you’ve not mentioned the scripting’ and I hadn’t got a clue what he meant. I couldn’t work out how it could be rigged like that, in contrast to championship manager which was clearly stacked in favour of certain outcomes. I’ve learned painfully in the years since, and yes – I mentioned the defender half step away from the ball as being as bad as 2011s stumble. I’ve lost so many goals to that uncontrollable move away from the right direction, and as said in previous post the outrageous continued playing time purely so they can score. I know exactly why Paul hated it so much, but also why NG loves it so much.
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The 0-0s continue…12 points from 21st now, it’s inevitable. I’ve not given up on grinding out the points but scoring is so hard, much tougher than France 2 (no jibe intended abbeyhill). I’ve stuck a video up that illustrates this PES at this level in this division in all its Paul infuriating glory. It’s the one where the AI defender nearly scores a Keith Houchen like own goal but just before that see how the AI stacks the edge of the box and forms a brick wall that refuses to move even an inch. The other video I uploaded shows the most disappointing modern PES player ever. You can’t help signing him as he is cheap, his stats are amazing, and he is immediately worth £19m…and yet Lobato….yes, him…always fails to deliver. He plays like a year 1 Hervey, he’s just no good at any one thing, the most anonymous supposed starlet ever. I really hate the guy.
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unlc turf, did Pual hate pes 2021? i think he liked it in the end, just features of fifa 22 wer better for him.
Lobato! he might as well be a default now because yes hes a feature of all our early teams until you know he’s just fast and that’s it, a money maker for ransfers
tip, when AI is overloading defense pass back to your keeper and draw them out. if theyre leading they wont come out far but far enough for you to get down the side and behind
in my Legend la liga career i am soon to be sacked for the first time in ages and i love it. won 1 match all season
if you have long meory you will remember me on pes chron thinking xbox 360 pes 6 was the best pes i had ever played and it still stands up now. Pes 2021 is now the king. efootblal i am waitin g for master league haha. could be soon!
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Adriano2 – all we have to go on is the last post – which is coming up to a year ago now (do we celebrate it like we do the clocks going back/forward?!). He says playing PES 21 is still a joy but I doubt very much he’s kept on playing all this time – no NG-like reveal that the year of silence has been one of heavenly PESing. I think he probably got fed up with both of them – Fifa’s eventual patching to the usual online-esque speed mush and PES’s inherent annoying failures – awful ML environment, broken things, uncontrollable player moments, etc. My guess – and I haven’t heard from him in a fair old while – is that he is playing something like Cyberpunk when he can be bothered but more than likely he is polishing his newest kitchen with snow leopard pelt gloves.
Which reminiscing makes me really wonder whether half of the Chronicles folk even existed – where are they now? Were they all the split personalities of one Coventry-based gamer? Did anyone actually meet anyone else IRL? If they did then it feels very much like we are all that remains of the Magnificent 7/Dirty Dozen/Oceans 11. If I had an eighth of the techie skill of Paul and a fraction of NG’s blogging commitment I’d do something – but I haven’t, so we drift on trying to keep the flame alive.
And if Newcastle sack me they are getting stuck with Lobato – it will cripple them for years.
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Legend, Adriano, wow. Is that mode even possible? I prided myself on always starting on the toughest difficulty ever since PES3 but was broken the year they introduced Legend. Good luck! I do vaguely remember you talking about PES6 on 360 back in the day – that was the unique next-gen PES that had no features but brilliant gameplay? Not optimistic that we get ML in efootball this year, no sign of it on the update schedule yet. Your good tip is La Pausa, right? I noticed Ipswich using it against Accrington Stanley last night
greatly enjoying your video updates Turf, yes no doubt there will be a tougher standard in the Championship compared to Ligue 2 where there are some shoddy teams. Which option file are you using? I have strict house rules on signings – only youths or players discovered by the scout – so have never tried Lobato but clearly not missing out on much
With massive relief I was sacked on FIFA23 career mode and can happily return to PES2021 tonight. One of the few computer games to actually make me feel physically angry while playing. A particular lowlight was a 7-6 win over Forest Green Rovers that was more like basketball
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hadn’t seen your comment today Turf before I posted mine. Looks like from Twitter that Paul’s music career is really taking off, DJing gigs in Ibiza etc so understandable that there’s not much time for footy blogging, good luck to him. Cyberpunk’s a realistic shout though, I’m also playing that one myself now it’s decent. Like you I do sometimes reminisce about being part of this community for 15 years and wondering who they all really were and where they are now. There was definitely one real life meet-up – maybe Shed, Lloyd or Paul? Assuming that also wasn’t a figment of someone’s imagination. And the video of Darryl in his pyjamas
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Well, he said it was Darryl, but surely it was just a home video of Al Murray? I feel Shed has to be an NG invention – generating views for the page he tries to come up with a name and settles for the first thing he sees looking out of the back bedroom window. Similarly, ‘Lloyd’ supposedly worked on the railways…as if anyone actually does that… I believe the Chris’s may have been real, you are internetable, as is Paul, Werd knew too much about our shared locality to be a fiction, although I can understand why others would think he was a highly elaborate hoax (those no internet years?!) Funnily enough my boss went looking for a photo of me for a presentation the other week and had to ring to say there were none. She was right, everything I am on had an image of a mower – I’ve stuck a few up there now just to try and convince folk I exist. If any of the others still read this then please post an update (or at least one of you let us know how all your alter egos are doing…)
My option file is whatever we used to grab early after release – can’t remember what it was called and some of the sites no longer exist. It’s simply a name/kit/badge update – no transfers or gameplay tweaks. Fortunately I didn’t delete the game when I initially grew infuriated. I don’t even use the scout, I’ve always found the recommendations hopeless. I usually just shop free agents.
I now have 10 games to go and am 21 points off 21st (the ‘agreed’ position). I’m toast, and what will make it worse is I’ll be fired by the bloke who looks like the guy who had the run ins with House in the Hugh Laurie series. I will continue though as I don’t see how anyone can do more than hang on in season 1 on Superstar, it’s always about season 2+. Legend for me was always too hit and miss – an occasional great game stuck between insanely hard games. But then being on 2 wins from 36 matches I’m hardly a skilled player.
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Think I’m going to turn the YouTube videos into my ‘can’t be bothered to work’ project. It’ll be a curated selection of moments for my one subscriber to enjoy! I should really do an old fashioned Lloyd-style highlights (or lowlights for season 1 superstar) reel but they’d barely stretch to a few minutes at present. It’s YouTube @ Uncleturf if this combination of words gets through Paul’s filter. I note someone has nicked my name as their title for some odd music vids – it’s not that one.
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your one subscriber is very content with the quality of these PES moments!! I should reciprocate now I am back playing, although not quite sure how to upload from PC – presume I need some sort of capture software, anyone know?
The funny thing about Arcas is that his shooting stats are actually pretty poor, I would hazard a guess at worse than Lobato’s, but somehow he keeps scoring. Also amused by that near epic own goal, and the fact that the commentator kept burbling on about something else entirely as the ball ricocheted off the post
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I pushed on yesterday, probably a bit too much as the games just merged into each other in a slop of sprint clamping and defeats – I got really annoyed with AI shithousery (I’ll post that later subscriber!) so just wanted to get the season done. Ended up rock bottom on only 3 wins and inevitably got sacked. Fair enough, there weren’t the small glimpses of positivity like auxerre, it was looking bad all round. I got offered a few jobs in the championship and took Millwall. A hard team to love but they have a huge squad and a decent wage budget so I stand a chance.
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I’ve no idea how to do things from PC abbeyhill – I recorded a training session today in Teams and after posting it in our project folder my phone has been ringing all day asking me to verify I want to log in to Microsoft! I think Paul used some bit of capture and editing software but the PS one does me for the level of influencer I am….maybe when I move to Only Fans I might get a bit more creative. Project Millwall begins tonight.
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abbyhill there shold be something vuilt in if you are nvidia, its called geforce. Shift+Alt+F10 sets up a thing (like on a console) and then Alt+F10 saves the last 30 seconds to a folder you pick. I think Alt-Z calls up all the options where you can pick quality etc. If you are on the other graphics card AMD I dont know, but prob something similr
I got the sack in my Legacy save but I won one more match before the end and that tells me it is playable. When Legacy decides your not having the ball though you dont ever get it lol.
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thanks, that works perfectly Adriano – had no idea it would be so easy! Will hopefully be able to share some highlights as I kick off a new ML in Serie B with an unglamorous but pragmatic Lecce side. No signings but 12 points from 12 games so far, reasonably happy with that solid start, and a decent sprinkling of goals from Jarvis, Arcas, Castledine and Mihailov. Plus a left footer from Rice, inspired by Turf’s videos
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Sounds good, looking forward to seeing how you get 12 from 12. I’m on one win from 4 early into the Millwall game. No matches for a fortnight now though as I’m in Sri Lanka for work. No idea how Roger Moore ever pulled off the safari suit look, when I go to humid places like this it’s three changes of T-shirt a day. Absolutely melting.
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of course, I’d forgotten about your exotic trip! How is it, aside from the extreme heat and humidity?
not many highlights so far from Lecce; despite hundreds of hours playing PES2021 I’d forgotten quite how tough it gets season 1 with defaults. After 6 straight defeats in a gruelling session last night we are 5 points behind safety (i.e. not getting sacked) with a handful of games left
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three points required from the final game against SPAL to hit the target of 13th in Serie B. At 2-2 going into the 88th minute a remarkable miss at point blank range from Arcas followed by the AI going right down the other end and helping itself to a goal meant Lecce finished 15th
Fortunately that didn’t get me the sack just a stern talking to from baldy. No transfer bonus though, so still largely with the defaults going into season 2. Both centre backs have been replaced obviously, and left back Teixaira joined from the youths although he has been even worse than Canning so far. Graziano Pelle has just appeared as a regen – he would be a beautiful signing given that he started his career with hometown club Lecce in 2004, unfortunately insufficient funds for now
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That’s a great result Abbeyhill. I could only dream of 15th. I’d probably take it in my second season! I’m going to resume tonight.
Just back from SL – lovely people, fabulously green and saw suitably exotic elephants, monkeys, fruit bats, etc but Colombo…no, not for me. I guess you’ll be familiar with this Abbeyhill but densely populated cities where their primary material is concrete seem to have a constant fug of noise, pollution, near misses with traffic, etc. It wasn’t as bad as Bangkok (last month we were in Phitsanulok in Thailand, via BK) as it’s not as high rise but give me the wide open spaces as soon as possible. I did prefer Thailand (Bangkok aside) because I like the food more, recognised more of the pop culture and experienced no hassle at all. In Colombo it was a bit of a pain with all the clamour to offer you tuk tuk rides, buy stuff, etc and the humidity was extreme. I can’t imagine playing or watching cricket in the middle of all that. I’m supposed to go to the Philippines in November and though I know my hosts and they are wonderful folk I can’t say I’m overly keen. Give me a nice Belgian town, or an Italian lake any day.
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I think I’m real 🙂
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Hmm, maybe…funny how I’ve never seen you and NG in the same place though…
Major rethink on the cards. I resumed Millwall, early days season two. Game played like lightning – way too fast, and not just me having been away for a week. Got to week six with a 1-1-3 record to be told I’d get sacked if I didn’t win the next one! I was mid table ffs. I drew 0-0 and sure enough they binned me. Couldn’t believe it. So I need a restart. And it’s not going to be the championship. I’m thinking a team that I know I’ll move on from – Asia, South America maybe? It all starts again tomorrow.
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uncl turf if the game is fast put the speed down and if it still fast well i dont know haha. i play -1 speed and that’s great
i am going to get sack again in my 2nd legend career. this feels lots like my early months on superstar, just a slog not much reward but the reward comes when the ship turns and it will!
i am in the zone of feeling happy with scrambled goals every now and then. only donw side is long seasons, in ps2 ml you got chance for new players sooner. im playing wth hull in england,original squad and theyre not much better than defaults
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Commiserations Adriano2, 2021 really is the hardest season one of any PES I’ve ever played (I.e all of them). It’s strange as post 2014 they all felt easier, one year I even got promoted in season one (relegated season two though).
I restarted in Thailand with Chiangrai – they of the stag beetle logo. I also switched from baldy manager to the bouffanted locks of that Australian dude. It’s much easier. First match a 0-0 with a congratulations cut scene after, second an outrageous 0-1 after a way over time winner. Videos of disgruntled experiences up now.
Don’t forget as well guys – clocks around the world switch to 23 hour time for the next six months, except in Coventry.
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well I’m delighted that we were gifted an extra hour of daylight, which I happily spent in the garden this evening as the hail fell
Adriano, I completely agree. In PES2 and PES3 you got to start in a bottom league with 8 teams, nice quick seasons while you built up a competitive team. Nobody asked for a 46 game slog with crap players in the name of ‘realism’, a definite downgrade. I blame FIFA
Sorry Turf I am simply not buying that. Sacked after 6 games just does not happen, there must have been something else afoot. Shades of Brian Clough at Leeds United? Maybe you fell out spectacularly with senior players in the dressing room? A foul mouthed rant at the officials after the ref, entirely correctly, allowed Kazim Richards’ ‘offside’ goal to stand falling well below the standards of behaviour we expect at Millwall?
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Honestly, it was bizarre, it beat Cloughie’s time, more like Leroy Rosenior just settling into the chair. I was stunned that I got sacked with a 1-2-3 record. And Millwall hardly have medals I can suggest belong in the bin.
Mind I’ve had the warning signs at Chiangrai as well – first game of 0-0 and I get a ‘good start’ message, by week 4 and a 0-2-1 record I’m being told the media will be starting to talk about me being given the boot. Won the fourth 1-0 though (goal from ‘Tayeb’ – the Asian Arcas) so hopefully gets them off my back. It’s much easier to knock the ball around but every team seems to set up to defend with a lone striker. I’m confident I won’t be bottom but given those messages who knows what will happen.
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