Since my last post I have gone through the pre-season getting ready and setting up for season #2 in the championship. As expected, i have about £5m to spare after salaries have been paid. I do appreciate that there is a fantasy element to master league so i didn't expect to not be able to sign anyone but to have the option to change financial difficulty would be great.
Anyway, i desperately need a right back as Carlos Edwards has turned 37 and is declining rapidly. I have a search to look for Right backs with 'offensive full back' set as a play style because it really suits my system, there are hundreds of results. I don't have a chance of trying to sign the truly elite so i skip past them, in my mind i want a tried and tested player good enough to play in the premiership with the potential of my promotion.
There are hundreds of players to choose from.
In a way I am impressed that konami have managed to improve the PES player database to such a level, so may different types of players to choose from, the one thing that concerns me is I have no idea who half of them are. In real life Millwall would have no idea who half of them are, yet I can just pluck a name from a database and find a bargain without even trying, just tweak the search filters by desired attributes.
I think there needs to be an option in ML which is applicable at the start of the game where you can set to have the full database available from the beginning, or an FM style attribute masking system. for example if i start off as Millwall, Initially I can see all data from all players within Northern/Western Europe, for all other players i can see maybe their OVR or a vague snapshot of their attributes, perhaps even the hexagon can be brought back and you would have it shaded a certain colour for certainty of a players abilities. and by hiring scouts and assigning them to areas after a certain amount of time (and incurred costs) do the other regions have their players attributes become available... i'm digressing here i know...
Back to the point, through my search for players i notice that I have enough money to sign Lichsteiner, you know, that international class full back and that if i actually confirmed notifications he would join up with my squad. At this point, i'm sure a few of you are screaming 'what are you thinking! sign him up!' but for me It feels cheesey, it's not a realisitic signing at all, i can't sit there playing a game as millwall in the championshio with world class players strolling about in my team.
I guess PES does give you many different ways to play the game, but it's completely down to personal self restraint rather than restrictions/options placed in the game itself.
For what it's worth I signed Kieran Trippier from relegated burnley for £2.5m, a player that i know about and that Millwall would know about albeit for a slightly weak fee compared with real life. I then set about trying to get a 3rd choice young striker in to compete for my 1 centre forward position. I looked through the regens and to my surprise, they are fixed somewhat from last year, but also to my dismay, fantastic regens are very easy to sign for very cheap. Miroslav Klose is one of my favourite players of all time but yet it took self restraint to not sign him, a 16 year old centre forward rated 74 (same as my first choice centre forward) for a ridiculously low wage and there are green smiley faces all over the page on the negotiations page...
bah
the season is about to start, i turned down the offer of a job at newly relegated leicester and i'm not even going to start on the fact i could sign for ANY club that didn't have a manager regardless of their ability or this post will be read by even less than the 0 people that will read it in it's current format.
tl;dr again: I am completely enjoying player Master league however self restraint is the only way to be able to play the game how you desire, the ability to make ML completely unrealistic (rather than only slightly unrealistic) is far too easy and tempting. I think i am going to diagram how i think scouting and player acquisition should work in ML and send it off to Adam. can't hurt...
) and Isco to my squad for a total of €50M and Konko.
Libermann was great, Ivarov and Iouga are acceptable, the rest...uuugh...no! 
