Well, well, well.......... Would you Adam and Eve it, the Chairman is only loving me right now, and rightfully so.
During the close season, I had a some great offers for some of my better players. Reece Williams, who has been groomed fantastically well in the Technique department since Day 1, started to draw interest from a few of Europes elite. His age and 86 OVR for a DMF certainly had something to do with that. Anyway, an offer of just over £7 million pounds came in, so I reluctantly cashed in. I do have Matty Bates who is very similiar to Reece, and the money was too good to turn down.
I then sold Souprayen, the French LB I bought last season. He was actually, on paper, my Player of the Season last year, but a £2.5 million offer couldnt be sniffed at, especially as I have excellent cover in his position, and the fact I only paid £680,000 for him originally.
I then cashed-in on Tamudo, who has been brilliant for me, scoring some truly spectacular goals, but at 36 years old, £1.2 million was too good to turn down.
I also had an offer for my goalkeeper, Jason Steele. Liverpool offered me a whopping £9.2 million, but I couldnt secure another decent keeper so I had to turn it down. Steele has benefitted massively from my Technique training over the last 4 years, and has Goalkeeping Skills of 91 and Responsiveness of 90. He truly is one hell of a keeper, that really has improved leaps and bounds over the last season. In fact, he recently got his first England call-up, and he has been instrumental in Boro's incredible start to this new campaign.
I promoted about 6 Youth Team players, mostly with ratings between 65-69 OVR, but with Box-to-Box and Enforcer Player Cards. They all look to have a bright future.
My major signing though, has already became a 'God' at the Riverside. Oliver Giroud, a CF from Montpellier, with an OVR of 84 but stats for Body-Balance, Dribbling, Shot Power and Shot Accuracy all in the very high 80's- has been nothing short of a revelation. He has scored in every game so far, and currently has 13 goals in 10 games. Boro are sitting at the top of the Championship with a record of played 10, Won 8, Drawn 2. His partnership with Emnes (83 OVR) is spectacular, and he is the missing link to the puzzle.
Giroud loves R2, and he is an absolute pleasure to control in the dribbling department. He is a left-footer, but his balance is incredible, his feet are so quick, and he does things that I have not seen any player do in PES 2012. He is the messiah. Utd may have had Cantona, but we have Giroud.
These next two video's highlight everything about this very special player.
These are actually the last two games I've played, with the first being the first time the Boro fans had witnessed any Boro player scoring a Hat-Trick. The match was against Cardiff at home. Cardiff scored first from close range, Giroud then equalised after some brilliant movement off the ball saw him in space, a super-quick R2 turn bought him 3 yards, then an R2 finish into the near corner leveled the tie. Giroud then made it two when a Wellens pass picked him out, he created space beautifully again with R2 before another R2 finish into the bottom corner.
Cardiff then equalised late on to level the match, and it looked like the points would be shared, but someone forgot to give Giroud a copy of the script. A foul on the edge of the box in injury time gave Boro and Giroud one last chance. Giroud stepped up, and bent one into the top corner to secure all 3 points, his Hat-Trick, and his legendary early status at the Riverside. Wow, are you kidding me.
YouTube - Boro 3-2 Cardiff
The next game was all about Giroud's cool finishing as he scored both goals as Boro beat Brighton away 2-0. Emnes picked out Giroud with a superbly weighted through-ball over the top, and the Frenchman showed his cool class with a cheeky dink. 1-0. He then made it two, after a beautiful one-two volley-give-and-go, saw him link up with Emnes again before another cheeky finish doubled his tally. If you check the Highlights, you'll see Giroud came agonisingly close to a consecutive Hat-Trick after a truly audacious effort (L1 Long-Range Lob), just couldnt bend in enough at the last minute. What a goal that would have been by the way ......
YouTube - Brighton 0-2 Boro
) but finally the game has clicked for me, just a shame aspects of the game are held back due to lazy programming and bizarre design choices.
