It'd be far more interesting anyway if we were shown number of passes, completion % is meaningless if it's 3 perfect passes versus 100 passes.
That's the thing for me against the AI on anything higher than Professional - all teams will hit 100+ passes, even if they're set to "long ball", whereas I'll hit maybe 33% of that, so possession and passing accuracy are always way down for my team, and way up for the CPU, even though I win or draw most games. I can't recall ever having more possession or a higher passing accuracy - purely because I take one pass to do what the CPU does in three passes!
The thing that sticks out most for me - primarily because the commentators mention it
every bloody game - is that I've conceded the least amount of goals in the league by about 15-20 goals, and yet, I've not scored a great deal either - most games I either win 2-1 or 1-0, or draw 1-1 or 0-0. There's very little deviation - I don't smash the lowest team in the table, and I don't get smashed by the highest team in the table (in-fact, I usually find them a lot easier to play).
I think a big part of that is the defending system - against the CPU on World Class or Legendary, they just
never make a mistake. They're always perfectly positioned and no matter what I do with the sliders, I can't fix that (only move them up or down, but they stay in that perfect, impenetrable line -
every single team). But also, as the human player, I find I have to use Legacy Defending to be able to stop the CPU (otherwise I jog past them and give them constant one-on-ones - though the overpowered GKs usually prevents high scorelines), and with Legacy Defending it's too easy.
After a few seasons, I'm left with the realisation that there's very few goals every game, the results are usually the same, the CPU always plays the same way (triangle-passing and perfect defending
no matter what), the stats at the end of the game are always the same, and that, bottom line, playing on World Class or Legendary is going to be an exercise in repetition. I'm playing the same game over and over again.
I'm sure that none of that is the case on Professional, but it's far too easy to press and dominate teams, and I can't get along with manual because it looks crazy to me to see Premier League players passing the ball out of play three times in a row (I'd much rather that they made the assisted controls into semi, and abolished the old semi).
I do still get enjoyment out of the game, because it feels great to set up goals and it feels great to score - and PES is a no-go for me because of the simplicity of the engine (I much prefer a deeper, if wonky, engine, than a basic, boring one), despite the fact that you see a variation in team styles and results without having to mess with sliders and accept a fix-this-break-that solution.