Well Well Well.......

It would appear that my new found confidence in my shooting abilities wasn't misplaced.

Last night i racked up my first league win, And i was very pleased with my performance, although a few considerations must be made. Wexicoish had replaced his controller and had probably not played for at least a few days. So he was probably not exactly "match fit" and i think his game against me was the first of the night whereas i had played one QRM before we played each other. That aside it was a great game. i could tell early on he wasnt causing me the problems he did in our first and only other game against each other, again probably a combination of him not playing for a while and me having another 2 weeks of solid manual experience under my belt. The game ended 1-0 to me. Although i did get a hairy moment in the 89th odd minute when he took my defense to peices and thankfully shot wide. It was nice to get a win on the board. The beauty of manual is not knowing what to expect from your opponent. last time we played each other wexi beat me 2-0. This time i won 1-0. I guess that suggests that we arent worlds apart in the skills stakes, but when we played that first game it certainly felt like it. i must be developing faster than i think. In the last 15 minutes i was pinned back quite badly, he needed a goal and he really wanted to get one. Although my goal was only really threatened that one time in the 89th minute i was still not able to get forward at all, and conceeded to defending my lead.
Which brings me neatly to the next topic i wanted to cover. defending leads.

After my game against wexi i played a friendly with Liverpool_fifa. as usual we chatted whilst we were playing and i was telling him about the game and how i was hanging on in the last 15 minutes or so. He brought up an interesting point that with assisted controls a 1 goal lead is never enough. i hadnt really thought about it before but i think he is right. with assisted controls you can be pulled apart in a second. whereas with manual because the pace of the game is generally slower, its a little easier to read and anticipate what your opponent is going to try, therefor making defending a lead slightly more bearable. i find this to be the case anyway.

Although i was panicing a bit when under pressure towards the end of that game, at the back of my mind i knew that wexi would still have a lot of work to do to equalise. I think i actually made it worse for myself than it was because i was so desperate to get my first win.

Im not suggesting that once you score you should shut up shop. In some situations attack is the best form of defense (liverpool_fifa CERTAINLY employs this tactic!) But in those situations where you have only a little time left, its a viable option to slow the game down, and soak up pressure, without needing to worry about getting forward. you no longer need to score to win, so the pressure switches to your opponent, they have the work to do, and in some cases trying to push forward too much will open up gaps that you really dont want. i guess im saying that tactics like this have their place, and it worked well for me last night.

in the game against Liverpool_fifa i opened the scoring early on, which must have surprised the life out of him because he always beats me. From kick off the ball was pushed about a bit, i got forward and won a corner. I Swung it in neatly, and got a clean head on it. 1-0. 4 minutes played. I think he was just having one of those games, i wasnt exactly playing out of my skin, but nothing was really coming off for him and he seemed to be struggling. My short term memory is letting me down today and i cant really remember much about the second goal, apart from the fact that i scored it .

The game ended 2-0 to me and i felt a bit guilty when he said over the mic "cheers for that, just what i needed before i play my league game". I havent checked his result yet. i hope it didnt affect him too negatively.

So two full manual games played, 3 goals scored. i was pretty happy. Kappa fancied a game so we played a friendly as our league teams psv and fenerbache. As always it was a tight game. We both play fairly slow build up play, although with my new formation im able to get forward fairly quickly. 0-0 at 90 minutes i was almost thinking about penalties, extra time kicks off and this happens.

I heavily reccomend you watch the video (if anyone is actually even reading this?) it is a beautiful example of what you can do with manual controls. Kappa cut me to ribbons with one killer ball and an epic first touch to round the keeper, ironically at a point when my formation should have had its best shape.

So it ended 1-0. which wasnt bad. as usual i enjoyed the game which is the main thing. and any practise is good.

I have noticed lately that i seem to be more capable of using the wings. when i was using assisted controls i very rarely used the wings. sounds stupid really but as i played with arsenal a lot of the time, playing on the ground was their strength and with fabregas, nasri, denilson and arshavin, playing up the middle seemed to produce better results for me than playing wide. it might be because Fenerbache have good options on the wing. both boral and kazim kazim are quick and strong and playing against manual players gives you that little bit more space. Im also hoping that Kezman gets called back into the fenerbache squad, just to give me a little more punch upfront.

So at the moment im up to date with all my league games. Played 4, Won 1, Drawn 2, Lost 1. Sitting third in the league with 5 points and a goal difference of 0. Nothing to look forward to until the next fixtures go up, which will probably be sunday if i remember correctly, apart from my Cup game against xfox6's Newcastle. the scout report on the league website
http://www.globalfootieleagues.co.uk tells me that he has won 2 lost 2. so not really sure what to expect, other than another slice of all manual goodness.

Cheers for reading

Tom