That’s the best way to put it. This was a freak freak result. The game itself was freak. It was a comedy of errors. It’s painful to lose but it’s terrible to lose at home to a team of Arsenal’s limited quality. This result has put us nine points behind Man City. Even worse, we are equal terms with Newcastle and Liverpool.

Such freak results do happen. That’s what makes football unpredictable and that’s why we are mad about football. Last week when Utd lost 1-6 to Man City at Old Trafford, he did mention that Utd had once lost 0-5 to Newcastle but went on to win the league. Freak results do happen but they don’t make the season. But, fair play to Arsenal. They got a big result here. They made their mistakes but also took their chances. Didn’t need a dodgy referee to get a good result. Let them enjoy the moment while it lasts.

GOOD

Chelsea Goals: In a 3-5 defeat at home, there’s not going to be too much to write in this section. I enjoyed each of our goals. Particularly the one from Juan Mata. What a lovely strike. Also quite happy that Lampard’s rich form continues with another well taken goal. John Terry always manages to score when he’s under pressure.

Attitude of the team: It’s a bit strange that I’m talking about here, isn’t it? I’m not the one to confuse performance with attitude. Truly, I thought Chelsea played with the right attitude throughout the match. We were consistent and very positive in our belief throughout the match though it did not produce results in this match.

Andre Villas Boas: In my opinion, he got the starting eleven spot on. Yes there was a debate around whether Meireles should have started instead of Mikel. Against Arsenal, I’d surely pick Mikel to close space and slow them down. If we were to have a defensive midfielder, Mikel suits better than a versatile (also means not a specialist def mid) Meireles. Also, I thought he got his substitutions spot on.

I thought he had set up Chelsea very well which was evident with how we started the game and how we should have killed the game in the first half. In the second half, he had to start throwing players in attack, the downside of which is always the counterattack goals for the opposition. This game could have gone either way. It wasn’t to be our day. We were unfortunate to lose this game.

Much has been talked about Chelsea’s defending of late. As AVB says, as a team, we are moving from directional approach to decision making approach. Our players always were looking for the manager to advise, guide and direct them to know to how to react in certain situations. This is common in 95% of the teams in football. What AVB wants to do is to let the players make their own decisions in those circumstances so we can realise the fullest potential of the players and subsequently that of the team. As you can see, it’s not a simple transition of mind set and understanding. For instance, when Ivanovic has the ball, John Terry, unlike before, may not quite know what to expect from Ivanovic. But what binds them is the overall key objectives for the game or the half or the situation. It’s natural that the transition into this new approach will have its biggest impact on defence rather than attack. This is certainly a new approach. Barca is known to play with a perfected version of this model.

You might doubt the merits of this system with the current set of players at Chelsea. But AVB is talking about a club ideology which shouldn’t be designed with the players that we have. And in fact, the players we assemble will have to be in line with the ideology that we have. Anyway, all I’m saying is, I’m firmly behind Andre Villas Boas.

BAD

Not killing the game: Half hour into the game, we must have been leading by 3 goals. Knowing Arsenal are shite at defending, we should have made their life miserable inside the box. It’s not our finishing. I think it was our final ball that lacked venom. Linking back to the earlier topic, some of our decision making was a bit poor. Arsenal got out of the jail because we didn’t force the game. They had poor a defence – centre backs and full backs – but still we didn’t make the best out of their incompetence. If we had got our act together, we could have beaten them like how City beat Utd. We were so dominant in the first half in all respects and didn’t convert that into goals.

First Arsenal goal: The longer we had not conceded the easier the game would have become. We were so superior in the first 20 minutes or so that Arsenal might have wondered where will their goal come from. When we conceded that tremendously increased their confidence. For this goal, I thought Ivanovic was at fault as he was ball-watching and failed to track his man. While we are defending in a not-so-compact way, our concentration had to be at higher levels. With this goal, Arsenal knew that there was a chink in Chelsea’s armour that can be exploited. They stopped coming through the wings and were looking to split through the centre backs.

Pressing and defending high: Well, this is part of AVB’s big plan for creating a distinctive playing style for Chelsea. Our attacks have become so unpredictable and lovely to watch because of the defence that plays high up. They get involved and create new angles and possibilities in attacks. The downside of this is getting caught by speedy opposition. Even when Arsenal had the ball in our half, you could see that the defensive line was much outside the box allowing possible one-on-one opporuntities for the opposition. Knowing that Arsenal has tremendous pace/dribble in Walcott and Gervinho and a deadly finisher in van Persie, I wouldn’t have played such a high line defence. May be, AVB underestimated Arsenal here and paid the price.

strong>Not enough tackles: It was very strange to see Arsenal committing more than three times the fouls that Chelsea did. We went a bit soft on them. We should have tackled hard and tackled more often. Probably, the two red cards against QPR is still playing in the minds. But I thought we made it too easy for them by not tackling hard like Chelsea always does.

Petr Cech’s close range keeping: Is it just me or it’s not too difficult to beat big Pete these days? From distance, he’s as solid as a rock. He’s got great positioning and coverage that only the best of shots can probably beat him. From closer range, I get this feeling (not backed by facts or stats) that he’s been letting in too many goals that he could have done something about. Where he needs to show his reflex or be a bit maverick in his approach, he still sticks to textbook goalkeeping. Don’t get me wrong. He’s the best goal keeper for me and I’d never swap him for anyone but by his own high standards he’s off colour these days. Must have been a sad day for him to let 5 goals past him at Stamford Bridge. Sure, he will come back with a bang.

CHELSEA MAN OF THE MATCH:

Juan Mata. Created a goal with a lovely cross and scored a screamer for the equaliser. The cross that he made for the first goal was basically to be recorded and replayed for our full backs 100 times ahead of every match so they know what’s this thing called ‘a dangerous cross’. The goal that he scored was just brilliant. It’s a goal that deserves to win a match. Sadly turned out to be a great goal in a lost cause. With some luck, he could even have won the match for us. Lampard ran close with his ‘lost and found’ midfield play. He was superb and that lob for Sturridge was out of the world. If he was some Spanish first team player, media would have gone berserk. I still wonder how did he see that pass? Did he have a pair eyes on his back too? Great shift by Lamps but still Mata is my man of the match.

FINAL WORDS:

9 points behind table leaders after 10 games is not good news. Is this unsurmountable? Hell no! Couple of seasons back Arsenal themselves had a 12-point lead only to end up third or fourth in the table. Man City are on top and this is a new territory for them. At this stage, to say Man City will win the league is like saying Chelsea will win the match 3-0 after the first 20 minutes of yesterday’s game. There’s lot more to see – fixture congestion, injuries etc.

See, Arsenal beat Chelsea. Man Utd beat Arsenal. Man City beat Man Utd. So will Chelsea beat Man City to complete a full circle? Unlike the last few season, the mini-league among the top six could be a deciding factor in which way the title race goes.

As regards this game folks, like I tweeted, ‘shit happens, life moves on’. And, there will be pay back at the Emigrants Stadium! Stay strong!

When QPR was happy time-wasting for the last half hour despite the two-man advantage at home, you’d get the measure of Chelsea’s performance today. When you realise that Chelsea had 60% possession in the second half despite playing with 9 men at Loftus Road, you’d see the kind of shift the team put in. I’ve never seen a team with 9 men play with such conviction and attitude as we did today. Hats off to the boys!

Yeah we lost a game on a day when we should have taken advantage of Man Utd’s annihilation at Old Trafford. It almost feels cheap to take about the result when we’ve produced such an outstanding effort. To play with 10 men in an away game is terrible. To have that man sent off in the first half is even worse. To have two men sent off in the first half of an away game is like suicide.

With a referee who came into the pitch with a determination of ‘let’s see how Chelsea gets a point today’, Chelsea could have easily shut up shop looking for the counter attacking opportunities. With nine men, it’s impossible for any team to dictate the game as you’re not going to see the ball. Chelsea though, took the game to QPR. They cared a damn about QPR’s referee, they didn’t bother how many players were on the pitch or where they were playing. They played like champions. They wanted to win this game. The result is a shame but football is known to be unfair, time to time.

GOOD:

Andre Villas Boas: When players play poorly or carelessly, I tend to blame the manager as his players normally reflect him and his expectations. On the same logic, my unreserved praise for Andre Villas Boas for the way Chelsea played today. I thought he made the correct substitutions and at the right times. Chelsea played with a great team ethic and the credit should go to AVB.

The whole Chelsea team: They simply rocked! They were unlucky. I’m so proud to be a Chelsea fan. This is one of the reasons which attracted me to Chelsea back in those days. We simply never give up. We give it our best shot. We win and lose as a team. We play like champions.

Man Utd getting schooled at Old Trafford: I knew City could win this match but what I saw today was total annihilation and humiliation. Here are the defending champions, conceding six goals at home to a fierce city rival. Utd’s run of luck had to stop and it bloody well did.

BAD

Refereeing: “WHY ALWAYS US?”. What’s with Chelsea and horrible refereeing? I mean, this was truly horrible. That was no penalty and Bosingwa was not a red card. Drogba’s was a sending off but I’d argue that if the penalty and Bosingwa’s sending off did not happen, Drogba wouldn’t have gone for that challenge in frustration. Chris Foy could very well have printed the team sheet and stuck it in his evil notebook. The only reason why I’m not going mental is that I hope and expect that it all gets rounded off in the course of the season. We will get our good times.

Anelka’s performance: Given the circumstances, we were not going to get too many opportunities. We had to make our chances count. Anelka in his 45 mins could have scored a brace and won the game for us, if he had finished better or if his decision making was better. While the tired Chelsea legs around him were playing like their life depended on this game, second half sub Anelka was losing possession like that’s why he came in for. Attrocious.

Chelsea MOTM:

I really don’t know. I don’t want to single out anyone as that would be a disservice for the other players. Great team effort, particularly by the defenders.

WHAT THE BOSS SAID:

AVB was terribly upset and it showed in his post-match conference:

I am very proud of the team. I don’t have a problem with discipline, I have a problem with referees applying discipline. Penalties can be given or not given, but if he gives a soft penalty like that he has to give soft penalties in the box in our chances on the opposite side as well. I don’t know what is the difference. If you give a penalty like that, if there is a shove or something like that, he has to concede a lot in the opposite box, so there is a difference of criteria there which doesn’t [make] us happy. The judgment used was not the same.

I have nothing to say about Didier’s sending off because it seems fair to me, but it doesn’t seem fair to me that Bosingwa was sent off because JT was in a position of cover and I think a yellow card should have been applied. Further to that I do not know, I cannot understand the difference of judgment from the referee, not only the major decisions but the fouls, the throw-ins. I just cannot understand it. Maybe I can be proven wrong but I have to share my disappointment from what I see.

I was aggressive to him [Chris Foy] but I think I have to be. I don’t care if he is okay or not, everybody can have a bad day, but this was not a bad day for us, it was a good day for us but it was a bad day for the referee. It is not a conspiracy theory, they take us into bands and [being called] cry babies. We are not cry babies; we are tough people like we showed today… but at the moment this pattern is happening. We are showing commitment and strength in depth to react to it and hopefully things will eventually go our way. On a normal situation with a normal referee with good judgement towards both games we win the game.

He just nailed it, I must say.

FINAL WORDS:

Now, we’re 6 points off Man City. As mentioned in my tweets, I do think that Man City’s mediocre run of form should start shortly. By beating Man Utd 6-1 at Old Trafford, they have really reached the pinnacle of this season. There’s not going to be a better day for them in this season than today. I expect them to take their foot off the pedal at this point. All they need is one bad defeat and we will see the real test of their character.

Now we have a mid-week league cup match. I’m sure we have some really tired players who need rest so they can be ready to hammer the goners. For the next premier league match, Fernando Torres will be back and Ivanovic will play right back with Alex back in the mix. For the league cup game though, we should look to field the ones that didn’t have to put in the double shift today. Hoping to see the likes of Josh, Romeu, Lukaku etc.

That’s it for now. This could have been a much better day but you know what, today’s performance has filled me with so much pride and confidence that I don’t care about the result. Media might have handed over the premier league title to Manchester City but I have this crystal ball that shows some wild celebrations on the last day of the premier league by AVB and his boys. When are we playing Man City?

I’m back on the blog! Couldn’t blog on the excellent mid-week win over Genk at Stamford Bridge. Blame on being busy, tired, fatigued and what not. The game not being live on the telly didn’t help. Don’t know how much we can read into the Genk game. Yes we were brilliant but Genk didn’t offer any resistance. But, something wonderful happened – cleansheet!

It’s my guess that just promoted QPR could prove to be a tougher opponent than champions league Genk. I know we played Genk at home and would be walking across the road for the QPR game but you get the point. I really thought that QPR would be the Man City before Man City became so. There are some billionaire owners that are less ambitious about their clubs.

QPR is not on a good run. Weren’t they beaten by Fulham 6-0 at Craven Cottage? They’re yet to win a home game this season. If football is predictable, Chelsea should beat QPR comfortably. But this is a derby, isn’t it? Anyway, I don’t expect anything less than a 2-0 win.

This is my first choice playing eleven tomorrow: Cech, Terry, Alex, Ivanovic, Cole, Meireles, Romeu, Lampard, Mata, Anelka and Sturridge. I should say that I’m loving the options available. I see AVB has been very clever in using his squad. One is how he rotates his players and another is how he uses them. They seem to play with a clear understanding of what’s expected of them. And it’s hard to substantiate but when it’s there, it shows.

There’s some rumour that Josh McE could be out on loan. You know that I’m a big fan of the boy (makes me fanboy then?). I’ve been a strong advocate of using McE in the first team. So you might put everything together and say that I won’t be happy with his probable loan move. Honestly, I’m okay with a half season loan for him. Important reason behind this compromise is, we seem to have a better squad. We don’t have underperforming midfielders who get to play no matter what their form is. If it’s my way, I’d still keep Josh McE and rotate him and Romeu, and pick between Mikel and Meireles based on the match and play the in-form Lampard. But if AVB thinks it’s better for Josh to go on a half-season loan, fine then. I’m totally behind AVB – because of what and how he is doing, irrespective where he might take us.

Let’s spare some time to appreciate the boy from la masia. Oriol Romeu is the real deal. Whoever got the idea to get him from Barca deserves praise. Before we bought him, I hadn’t known about him and I’m sure he wasn’t known in the football circles outside of Spain (or even inside Spain). Oriol Romeu is Mikel’s nightmare. Romeu is what Mikel might aspire to be. Technically sound foul-free ball winner who can spray passes to turn defence into attack. Mikel has his strengths, particularly with the way he uses his body. He’s a master free kick winner who knows the premier league all too well. The difference with Romeu is that he adds that extra dimension with smoother ball control, first touch and passing accuracy. It’s a pity that he’s probably got clawbacks in his contract but let’s have him as long as we can. But remember, the clawback is triggered only when Romeu wants to go back. If he wants to stay with Chelsea, he stays.

People! Frank Lampard has found his form. Ever since the period in which he was dropped, subbed and not btought on, he’s truly turned a corner. Of course, he needed a few goals to get back the belief and confidence but after a long time his midfield play is a joy to watch.

Just one more match. Yes, just one match this weekend and Fernando Torres will be back in the premier league. You don’t know how much I miss him in the premier league and how badly I want to see him again. A well rested, in-form and hungry-to-prove Fernando Torres will be unleashed against Arsenal next weekend. Not bad, actually. I’d rest the whole squad if it helps humiliating the goners.

I’m all too excited about the big Manchester derby this Sunday. Actually, I’m loving this renewed top of the league rivalry between the manchester teams. I’m loving the drama around the mind games, build-up and in particular the riling up of each other. Naturally, my expectation for this match is (a) draw (b) Man Utd win (c) Man City win – in that order. I do hope this turns out to be a high-scoring, drama-filled, brawl-disrupted, card-floating match with terrible refereeing that end with 8 players on each team.

And, Chelsea to win 2-0 or something.

I don’t know the exact word for Chelsea’s kind of good form. You can neither say we are in dazzling form nor can you say we are only decent.  To call our form ‘average’ would be wrong and at the same it’s not the kind of form you’d describe with superlatives. By whatever name you call it, we’re only three points off the top spot.

Everton has been our bogey team of late. I could hardly remember a good league win against Everton from recent times. Acutally, only Drogba’s screamer at Goodison in 06-07 comes to mind (one of my all time favourites goals). They have been difficult opponents – nicking points of us at the Bridge and blanking us at Goodison.

This time though, no shocks, surprises or heartbreaks. We needed a professional performance for all 90 minutes with no slip in concentration. We almost achieved it. The match actually turned out to be comfortable for Chelsea, especially in the second half.

GOOD

Performance: It was a very complete performance. I thought we were good in all departments. There was good balance between attack and defence. There was good control in the midfield. All this after a slighltly sluggish start that you’d come to expect of Chelsea.

Lampard’s midfield play: The man’s back. Yeah, he officially returned to form as soon as he started scoring again but for me, holding that crucial midfield position, I also expect him to do more. And he did that yesterday. He was quite alert and nimble. Made some lovely passes and created some interesting opportunities. Quite clearly, his confidence is back.

Sturridge’s form: Right wing is not where he wants to play. That’s not where we can see his best. But still he had one great game. Constant menace for the Everton defence. His pitch awareness is really impressive. With all the debate around whether or not to take  Rooney to the Euro, let’s remember that there’s an explosive Sturridge that Capello has not really made best use of.

Mata resumes normal service: After a couple of ordinary games, the Mata show is back. He’s such a joy to watch this little man. He most certainly creates an impact in every match he plays – sometimes has a great output and sometimes not so much. But what’s certain is the impact that he creates. Everytime he has the ball, you tend to think that this is a super sub who’s just come in – he has that freshness all the time, the energy levels and the brilliance. Long may his form continue.

BAD

Unclean sheet, yet again: At half time, I had tweeted this: “2-0 at half time should only mean that the final score will be 3-1 or 4-1. C’mon boys! Don’t concede more than one”. So that’s a run of 7 games without a cleansheet. I know it’s a bit unfair on Cech and defence. We’ve done a good job defensively but letting in one goal per match cannot just be down to luck.

Casual or cute?: You can argue if this deserves to be in the bad section. I got a feeling that as soon as we got the second goal, we were trying to be too cute and too clever with our attacks. When it all works, it’s lovely to watch but the way we did showed more of casualness than cuteness. As the team evolves together such plays and manouvres would be second nature but in premier league, safety does come first.

Ramires’ injury: Ramires has been brilliant this season. He’s only overshadowed by Torres and Mata. He’s the kind of player whose value is best understood in his absence than in his presence. He is the key component of the dynamism and flexibility of AVB’s Chelsea. When he was injured, I was worried. Now I gather that it’s only a minor injury and he should be back for the QPR match.

MOTM

Tough one again. Lampard was impressive and ran the midfield very well. Sturridge once again broke the shackles by scoring the opening goal of a game. But if you don’t award the Chelsea MOTM award to Juan Mata for this match, it’s like a freaking injustice.

FINAL WORDS

The international break was dominated by the debates around Chelsea Pitch Owners and Chelsea FC’s offer to them. Look, I’m a new age fan. I’ve not been watching Chelsea since the 60s or 70s and I hardly ever go to Stamford Bridge. So, I’m certainly going to be less sentimental. In my opinion, the CPO should take the offer and transfer the pitch ownership to Chelsea FC. For the untrained eyes, it all looks very positive. Given the compulsion of the new FFP rules and our desire to stay independent of Roman, we cannot run with a 42,000-seater forever. In costing terms, that’s an opportunity loss that you incur every week. In layman’s terms, it’s like the supply of a very profitable items being so less than the demand.

Chelsea will need to move to a bigger stadium. And that’s not possible without this arrangement with the CPO. In my opinion, Roman has demonstrated enough to show why he’s not just another cash counting billionaire owner. He has invested heavily in Chelsea. He’s so passionate about Chelsea. I don’t think he’s after the money that Chelsea can generate. He was one of the richest persons in the world even before he had heard of Chelsea. He’s not after Chelsea’s money and actually it’s the other way round. If Chelsea wants to be self-sustained, profitable and comply with all the financial fair play rules, movement to a new, bigger stadium is inevitable. In a way, when the match kicked off yesterday, you couldn’t escape the sentimental feeling around Stamford Bridge. Let’s see how the talks progress.

It was good weekend finally. Man Utd dropped points at Anfield. They should have got beaten but luckily for them, they don’t get punished for all their mistakes, as always. Man City rolled on for another big win and are sitting clearly on top. Given how well the Manchester teams are playing and how we started the season, 3 points off the top spot after 8 games is a good return. I’ve said this many times but I’d repeat it – This Chelsea has not peaked yet. And when they do peak, they could have a smashing run of form. When Manchester starts dropping points, the pride of London will keep amassing it. But it’s good to be off the limelight. Let the Manchester clubs appear to be in a two-horse race and let’s peak in March to surprise them both.

Champions league fixtures mid-week and then we have a west london derby and a certain manchester derby next weekend. Stay focused until then. How did I manage to write an entire article at this time and manage to not talk about PES2012. There I go!

The all-important PES 2012 review! I’ve had PES 2012 for a few days now. Generally, PES gets better with time. The game’s got a steep ‘appreciating curve’. The more you play, the more you appreciate. For a game such as this, to post a review so soon may be injustice. But hey, I can still call it ‘first week impressions’.

In the last few days, I had only few opportunities to play the game. Each time, my idea was to play a couple of games and leave it for the weekend. You thought I could stop with just two games per session? Since I got the game, I’ve gone to bed only at 5am in the morning and have managed to get up at 10am so can I get a few games before I leave for work. By now, I’ve played dozens and dozens of matches. The ‘just one more game’ syndrome! Sign of good times!

HOW DO I PLAY

Before we get into the review, let me give you the details of my settings based on which this section is written. I play on PS3 on my 40″ HDTV but I prefer to play on 480p on 4:3 aspect ratio. Yes, this means sacrificing some sharp graphics but playing Pro Evo on 480p on 4:3 is such an amazing experience that I don’t care about the HD graphics. If you haven’t tried it, please do it. You’ll thank me forever. Also, make sure you make the other PS3 settings to go with this.

I play the US edition of PES 2012. Mine is version 1.1 (which is the release day patch). I play on ‘minus two’ gamespeed setting. I play on ‘four bar’ passing. I always play on blimp camera. When you play on blimp and at ‘minus two’ game speed, the ‘four bar’ passing feels just right.

The teams that I play keeps changing. I normally play as Chelsea, Everton, Wigan, Real Madrid, Valencia, Villareal, Milan, Roma, Napoli, Ajax, Bayern, Schalke, Porto etc. Most of my games are exhibition matches with different match-ups, mostly driven by the real games in the weekend. I don’t play master league (yeah I know). I hardly play online. I have started a BAL game but haven’t really gotten into it. So apologies that I won’t cover online play and football life in this review.

I don’t know if I have a particular playing style as such. I play through the middle and I run along the flanks. I try to score screamers and sometimes try to walk the ball into the net. Mostly, I guess I play to the strength and weakness of the team I choose to play and the opponent team. I’m not a wold beater in PES. I’m just a decent player who’s hard to break down and very competitive irrespective of my abilities.

RATING SCALE

I’d rate this game on a scale of 100. Of the 100, I’d give a weightage of 60 for the gameplay, 20 for the looks and 20 for the game modes and options.

THE GOODIES

Here I’d talk about the presentation, graphics, animation and commentary. These are very important to the game and how the game presents itself but these are not everything. But if these fall too much below the standards, they could be game breaking.

PRESENTATION

The menus look lovely. They have a lot of life and personality. I love the way they are. I think Konami introduced this menu style in PES 2011 and very rightly stuck to it. The in-game menus are bit underwhelming and I may even call it ‘cheap’. Particularly, when you’re playing Become a legend, you do get a feeling that the menus and navigation look so low-budget. Not that it matters a lot to me but they can take a leaf from the other sports games to make the overall look and feel more stylish and savvy.

GRAPHICS

This is PES’ forte. PES has always had brilliant graphics – be it the lightings, player models, likenesses or the pitch. The graphics are always top-notch and it’s only better in PES 2012. Playing in the day setting in any stadia is an absolute joy. I thought they had nailed the day-time lighting in PES 2011 but they have bettered themselves in this version. While Pro Evo has some amazingly accurate player faces, I’ve noticed quite a few ‘that’s not how he looks’.

Also, the rain is either not visible or not as beautiful as it used to be in 2011 and 2010. You’re able to see the rain only in cut scenes and much closer camer angles. You might say that this is how it is even when watch a game on TV but somehow the last wo PES games showed rain very well. Anyway, on the whole, a brilliant effort in the graphics department with some room for improvement.

ANIMATIONS

PES 2011 could never reach its potential because of the broken animations. Based on fan feedback, one of the big improvement areas for PES 2012 was animations. In PES 2012, I just love the animations. There are hundreds of little pieces of animations that brings the game to life. Some of them are when the ball is in play and some of them when the ball is not in play. I still keep noticing a new animation in every match. Also, the animations have beautifully captured PES’ philosophy around inertia and momentum. That’s what makes PES so immersive.

That said, all’s not well because there’s still some work to be done on transitions between animations. For instance, imagine a player jumping high to win a header and misses it. As soon as he falls on the pitch, he still wants to go and win the ball. The animation to win the header is beautiful. The animation to recover the ball from lying flat on the pitch is also beautiful. What’s missing is the piece of code that seamlessly transitions from the first animation to the latter. That’s what make this episode looks a bit ‘jerky’.

So when people talk about PES 2012 animations not being good, I think they mostly talk about the transitions and not the animations themselves. Look at the animation of a screamer from 35 yards. Look at the animation where the defender cheekily wins the ball. Look at the some of the dribbles some accomplished players. They are all amazing animations bringing this as close to real football as possible but transitions do require some work.

CAMERA

Camera angles are huge component of making a football game a success or a failure. No matter how good the game is, if the camera angles aren’t good, the game’s going waste. In PES 2012, some new camera angles have been introduced, most importantly – blimp. Now, this blimp angle alone wins the game for me. Finally, I have a camera angle that allows me to see the whole width of the pitch without having to take my off to check the radar. Some may think that the camera is too distant to feel involved in the game or to make skill moves. For me though, I’m perfectly at home with this camera angle and I can’t thank Konami enough for including this.

Still missing some polish though. When you have a camera angle so far out as blimp, you can’t have those kind of score/time card and the player names that look massive in size for this camera angle. I hope blimp becomes a regular feature in the PES offerings. And I’m puzzled why the blimp angle is not available for online games.

The missing piece in the camera section continues to be the lack of option customise the height, zoom and the tilt of the camera angles. Seriously, I’m struggling to understand why it’s not there in the game.

SOUND

No improvement here. PES is never known for its commentary looks like Konami have absolutely no intentions of improving this either. I never care for the commentary too much. After a couple of weeks, you’re gonna hear the same stuff over and over again anyway. In fact, what I always do is to switch the commentary to a language that I don’t know, such as Spanish or Portuguese or even Japanese so that I don’t need to pick on it but the intensity of the game is retained with some eccentric sounds of an unknown language.

Sadly though, even the Spanish and Portuguese commentary in PES 2012 are not good. Not that I understand what they say but lacks the tempo. My PES 2012 is now on French commentary which is better sounding than the rest. An exciting Spanish commentary pack would be most welcome.

Other than that, the usual style of music is there. I thought PES 2011 had fantastic music in comparison but probably I need to give more time to 2012. The ball sounds are there but slightly subdued. The crowd sounds are good but can be improved but when it’s clear that Konami doesn’t care about sound at all, no point even talking about it.

ATTACK

This is where this game shines. If you’re the slow build-up kind of player, you’re gonna love this game. With your and the opponent players constantly moving on the pitch to create spaces or close spaces or close down the ball possessor, the game is so dynamic with new opportunities being opened up with every game second.

Dribbling in the game is just perfect. Special dribblers are really special and you know that when you control them or face them. The others dribble as much and as good as professional footballers can do. I love the fact that dribbling is now lot more intuitive that it ever was. You kinda ‘know’ what to do in certain situations and the game/player responds superbly to that. The movement is so free that with the ball you are always presented with a number of options of how to build that attack. The one gripe here is the dribbling animation. When less accomplished dribblers run at high speeds, the feet movement almost looks like they cycling on a football pitch. That should look lot smoother than it does now. Plus, its 2012 – can’t we not have unique dribbling styles – at least say, 15-20 different dribbling styles instead of the current four?

The other aspect that makes attacking a real pleasure is the passing. I think, finally in next-gen, Konami have fixed the passing. No more of ‘I didn’t want to pass there’ or ‘I didn’t intend to give it to this guy’. Within the mechanics of the sliders and the limitations of the player attributes, the passes go where and how fast you want them to go. Now you can pass in tight spaces or make lovely cross field ground passes. This allows you to adopt different playing styles. If you want to suffocate like Barca does, the current passing system does allow you. The success of this passing system is complemented by the brilliant AI players – both on your team and on the opponents side. If the player movements were less dynamic, we wouldn’t have been able to see the beauty of this passing system.

Also, the off-the-ball options for set pieces is a great addition. It just makes a whole lot of things possible. In PES 2012, I don’t take any corners myself anymore. I want to be in the box, fighting with the defenders for space and heading that ball into the net.

On the attack side, some improvements needed though. The long passing is assisted, no matter how manual you get with all the sliders and stuff. It’s very hard to make a bad long pass (lob that is). You invariably find your man as long as you point the direction or thereabouts. I’d like to see a better percentage of errors there. In short passing, while it is much improved, it’s not perfection. Until it’s not perfection, there’s room for improvement!

Overall, the attack in this game is superb. The game is so bustling because of the dynamism of the attacking opportunities and manouvres possible in this game.

DEFENCE

I generally love defending, be it in real football or in football games. Defending is an art and I think it’s very hard to build a good defensive system in a football game. I think PES 2012 is the closest that anyone’s ever got. Now the whole defence is based on knowing when to contain, when to pressure and when to tackle.

So you’re first expected to make this decision and then follow it up with your button presses. Either you think through and you do intuitively, but you don’t push some buttons and hope. You should clearly know what you’re doing. With the AI being so clever and able, jumping into a tackle may not always work, particularly against all players. You need to know the player that you’re defending and make your choices accordingly. For instance, if it’s Arjen Robben coming against your defender, if you rush into a tackle, you’ll see him dance past you and set up a one-on-one. What you can do is to contain him, allow your fellow defenders and midfielders to get back to their positions and then time your tackle to win the ball.

Some people have found defence either too difficult or cumbersome. I find it just perfect. As soon as I lose possession, I straightaway go to R2 (for jockeying) and select the relevant defender and position myself to jockey and block the space for the attacker. This has become second nature. Everytime I lose possession, if there’s no opportunity for a quick recovery, I naturally go to R2. That’s all you need to know and remember. But when you don’t do this, you’re challenging Arjen Robben on pace and skill, which is not a great idea.

Defenders are never as quick as attackers but they don’t always get found out on pace because half of defending is positioning. With intelligent AI players in your team, you only need to pick the relevant defender and use R2 to contain and time your tackle. The key tip here is to release R2 as you tackle because these are two contradicting inputs. Either you jockey or your tackle. So if you decide to tackle, let go the R2. Do it simultaneously. It’s like driving a car – like how you switch between the clutch and accelerator.

What I don’t see enough in this defence system is that little shoulder budge, some body check and good old fashioned shirt pull. In classic PES, we had all this and that added so much personality to the game, because they are so real. In real life football, defending is not just jockey, containing and tackling. The push, the shove and the body checks are all key methods for effective defending.

If you’re a thinking defender, you’ll enjoy this challenge. If all that you want to do is to attack and score goals, well, you better learn to love defending. It’s rewarding and it makes your PES experience more complete.

GOALKEEPING

What can I say that’s not been said about goalkeeping in PES 2012? Well, I can say goalkeepers are good in this game. Even in the demos, I didn’t find them as bad as the community is making them out to be. They weren’t perfect but I could live with it. With the release day patch, version 1.1 have made them more solid. Yes, they still make mistakes but that’s how it should be, right? In real football and in PES, attackers and defenders make mistakes and that’s what keep the game flowing. The same should be true for the goalkeepers too. They should make errors in judgment, just like the other 21 men (incl the ref, I’ll come to that later) on the pitch.

As it stands, the goalkeepers are good. They have made some stunning saves and they have made some mistakes too. There were games where I thought the best performance on the pitch was from the goalkeeper – mine or the opponent’s. What I would say is that they still lack in the animations department. Imagine how the goalkeepers would operate if they had only 10 animations while they should have something like 30. That’s what looks a bit awkward at times. It’s an area to improve and it’s just not a game breaker at all.

REFEREE

I think Konami have nailed it this year on this aspect. Never once did I have to complain about the ref being too lenient or too strict. They are just right. That doesn’t mean they won’t make mistakes. They do, but they are very consistent with some odd mistakes here and there. Exactly, how I want the referees in real football too. I want them to be consistent but make those odd mistakes which make football and football banter interesting, especially when I’m not on the receiving side. In some instances, I did have some issues with referee kit colour clashing with the team kit colour. This is pretty basic stuff and should be patchable. And by the way, the auto kick-off is gone. Yay!

TACTICS

Probably, the only area where PES 2012 has gone back. The tactical options in PES 2011 was comprehensive but also built a solid base to improve on. Surprisingly, in PES 2012, Konami have dumbed down the tactical options instead of expanding further. In PES 2012, we have the same tactical sliders and four presets where each preset can have a formation, style and set of tactical sliders. You’re able to change the tactics on the fly while the action is taking place on the pitch. Our ability to edit the tactical options is now limited only to the four presets and it’s the AI teams’ choice to use one of those depending on the match situation.

What I dearly miss is the ability to instruct the team to play in a certain way depending on match situations. For instance, in PES 2011, I was able to tell my team to adopt a style in the first 15 minutes of the game or a different style when I’m a goal down. While you can argue that presets do that same thing and tells you to take the decision while the game is played on the pitch, I’m unable to know or influence how various teams would play. In PES 2011, each and evey team had this tactical options set up or you were able to set it up for the teams yourselves to resemble their real life playing style. And when you play against these teams you could see that when they are a goal down, you know each of these teams could react differently to these situations based on the tactical option settings.

In the absence of the tactical settings or various match situations for teams, I don’t know how a certain opponent would play in a certain situation. You can say that this is a good thing as there’s some unpredicatability. I’d agree if Konami are spot on with their choices of tactical option settings for all the teams. As we saw in PES 2011, they are not. Setting most teams to ‘long ball’ is not making use of these options well. And now, they might have hard coded these settings to ‘long ball’ and we wouldn’t even know it or be able to change it.

Otherwise, I do like the ability to change tactics on the fly and love that little manager graphic with whose gestures we’d know what tactic we have chosen. Clever little feature.

It’s a bit sad to know that the tactical set ups for most teams need a lot of work. The formations are wrong, so are the line-ups and squads and the game sliders are totally off for many teams. It requires a community project (such as PESCoach) to clean up the Konami mess. Sounds familiar? Probably, Konami should use the services of some of the community members to help them with such data gathering stuff instead of getting it wrong each time. It’s a shame that the tactical options are not optimised while the game plays so well and can use these options very well.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

It is indeed. What’s very pleasing to see is that your players have become intelligent too. Traditionally, we’ve had this problem of say, Lucio when he plays as an opponent defender, gives you a nightmare and when he’s on your team, he goes totally awful. Not anymore. The improvement of the AI of the players of the user-controlled team has brought us on a level playing field with the monster of the opponent AI.

I can say with confidence that the AI in PES 2012 is the best ever seen in football games – all classic PES included. The AI is just amazing. The moves that it makes, the passes that it sees and especially the cunning intelligence that you normally associate only with human players. I’m very pleased with Konami’s effort with the AI. In an era of gaming where single player gaming is the relegated to obscurity and is replaced by massively multiplayer games, Konami’s effort to improve the single player experience through excellent AI is commendable. Honestly, even in multiplayer games in football, the AI matters a lot because at any point the user only controls one player out of his eleven. But you don’t find gaming companies spending too much AI if the focus is very high on multiplayer.

The improvement in AI shines across. Back in PES 2009 and 2010, BAL sometimes used to be a frustrating experience because your team mates were just dumb. Similarly, when you play ‘fix’ in a tournament, your performance was always better than your team mates at least by a point on a 10 point scale. Now, try playing ‘fix’ and see the difference for yourself.

A good AI doesn’t mean all teams should start playing like Barca. In fact, that’s a good example of a bad AI. In PES 2012, the difference between the various teams and the players is very visible and pronounced. As a player who plays with a number of teams from different leagues, I can tell you that each team is unique, even though their formations and preset playing style is the same. The difference is brought out by the individuality of the players that make up those teams. The AI is the most important reason why PES 2012 feels so ‘alive’.

DIFFICULTY

One of the things my mates and I always liked PES for was the difficulty. We liked the fact that it was difficult. We liked that challenge. Sometimes the AI cheated but we’d be like ‘we’ll fuck you back, you cheating bastard’. We knew that we couldn’t relax for one second. We had to stay alert all the time – until the final whistle. We had to be on our toes. You lose your focus for a moment, you’ll have your asses handed over to you. The next-gen PES had lost this. For instance, I could be on the phone with someone and still play and win in PES 2011 – something that was impossible with PES 5. Now, PES 2012 has taken us back to those glory days.

Make no mistake, PES 2012 is hard. I’m still playing only on professional and my win-loss ratio is almost equal and this is only in exhibition matches. Traditionally, the AI gets much more competitive in the tournaments than in the exhibition matches. So, it might take a lot of time for me to beat the professional AI in tournaments on a consistent basis. Even if I manage to do that, I’ll have more and better challenges in the game. The top player on classic PES was much revered, especially when you’re playing tournaments and such. That is back. Top player on PES 2012 is a monster. And you know what, there’s this superstar level above top player. You wanted a challenge, right?

EDITING

As a passionate game play editor of PES games, I was a bit disappointed with the editing side of PES 2012. It’s not that we’re missing something but it’s just that this section has not evolved at all. In the last few years, editing section has remained almost undisturbed. The community was crying out loud for an in-game global editor for the console version that would allow you to edit values by certain points or percentage for a certain ability across all the players in a team or selection of teams or a league or a selection of leagues. It’s well known that the best PES experience is possible only on PC. That’s also because the game play editors available for PC can make the game so much better and so much customised to personal preferences. The PS3 game play editing is very low-key because of the manual effort involved. Hope this changes in future.

The other lack of improvement is in explaining the player abilities and cards. While there is a probably poorly translated one-liner for each ability, in most cases, we find the real meaning of the ability by trial and error after numerous play tests by game play editors. With no more piggyback tutorials, there’s a bigger need from Konami’s side to explain these details and changes better knowing well that we have a PES-fanatic community that edits the game to optimise it.

After the exciting inclusion of Stadium Editor in 2011, I was expecting this to be a much more mature feature in 2012. It’s pretty much the same with some new additions. Nothing ground breaking or fundamental here.

LONGEVITY

Great AI, punishing difficulty levels, better passing system, optimised defence system, improved graphics and animations, new camera angles and enhanced football life – one hell of a game! Don’t even bother about longevity. This game will be played beyond 2012. Like how we have people (like me) who still play PES 5 on PS2, this game, PES 2012, will stand the test of time.

RATING

As mentioned earlier, I’d rate this game on a scale of 100 with a weightage of 60 for the gameplay, 20 for the looks and 20 for the game modes and options. My rating for this game would be 80/100 which comprises of 50/60 for gameplay, 15/20 for the looks, 15/20 for the game modes and options. Just to put this in perspective, I’d have given 80 or less for PES 5 which I consider is the best football game to date, a mantle that PES 2012 can rightfully take after some time. I very strongly recommend PES 2012. If you’re a football fan, you won’t be disappointed.

FINAL WORDS

Having grown up with the PES/WE series, I was rooting for Konami to make a comeback. It’s like you’re supporting your underdog football club in a cup final against a heavyweight superstar club. I’ve tried this ‘I’m a customer and I’ll buy the best football game available in the market’ line. That’s not true. It’s like the school and college you studied. There’s a subconscious bonding that’s created by the good and bad times with classic PES. I just can’t deny that. That’s one reason why I’ve been more forgiving with PES and really looking for Konami and Konami alone to give me my football game. And, they haven’t disappointed.

What Konami started with 2011, they have almost finished their job with 2012. I say almost, because the finishing touches are yet to be made. What is certain is that PES is back on track. Konami have showed that they still have the ambition to produce a top class game in this competitive industry and are unfazed by their recent failures. With PES 2012, they have reassured to the football fans that if there’s one company that understands the heart and soul of football and can code that and replicate in a football game, that’s only Konami. In a year when their country rose above from their national disaster, Konami rises above to show why they are the best in making football games. Hats off to Konami for an excellent PES 2012!

Published on ProEvo Nights