Dai why IMO he has failed in the job he has been employed for, and that is to get us qualified into a major competition, I have said from the start, I mean Montenegro qualified instead of us ffs
Given we were 117th a couple months back, looking at the final standings it mental to think if speed had been in charge from the start it would have been highly likely that we go a play off spot. We are finished 3 points of it in the end!!
Another great result from our national team. Well done lads, never easy going to places like Sofia, even if their national team are in turmoil!! Gary Speed deserves full credit for getting these young lads to start playing like a team on a mission!! Couldn't watch the match this evening, but the commentary I listened to on Radio Wales, the boys played really well & should have made the score-line a lot more comfortable. Sounding again like Bale, Allen & also in this game Ramsey, were stand-out performers. Kevin Ratcliffe was waxing-lyrical about Allen's performance!! A good recovery to get 3 wins out of the last 4 games, remembering, we at least deserved a draw from the England match!! We should progress up the rankings now & if we can keep our main players free of injury the future looks promising. Only thing for me is the length of time to the start of the next qualifiers. We're on a roll now, don't want it to be interrupted......
Jager what are you on and have you got any for sale?? Firing him because we haven't qualified when he has been in charge for about half the campaign. He managed 5 qualifiers, won 3 and lost 2 (to england, narrowly the second time around) The 3 wins were against teams that Toshack lost to. If he had ****ed off before qualifying like he should have done, given Speeds result we prob would have got the play off spot IMO If he can keep us playing as he is, then given our group for the World Cup qualifying doesnt look that difficult, i have every belief that we will be off to Brazil. It would be an idiotic move of the highest calibre to get rid of him now!!
I am not convinced and have said that from the start of his tenure, it's not just the losing we have had, it's the manner of these losses. His job is to qualify us for a major, like all the managers in my life time he has failed to do so. I have never seen our country qualify for anything, the closest I have seen it is under hughes, and IMO if speed continues we will never qualify
Not only are we starting to compete, we are playing good passing football & beginning to dominate more renowned teams in phases too!! We had brief moments of this under Tosh during his tenure, but it's starting to be a bit more consistent under Speed!! This is not to put Tosh down, I was a Tosh fan. But Speed has definitely got a great team spirit there & getting a run of consistent performances, relatively free of injuries. Tosh never always had that, but he did bring some of these youngsters through & the masterstroke of putting Flynn in charge of the whole youth!!. If we continue progressing as we are I'm hoping to see us really doing some damage in the Brazil WC qualifiers. But as ever, we always need our best boys available, with such a small pool to pick from, injuries really hurt the likes of Wales.....
I was against the appointment along with virtually everybody else but he's done well since coming in. The last four games have been a revelation so to sack him is madness. The players obviously like playing for him and he's got us scoring again. Defensively we've looked solid too. Apparently he's sorted out things that go on behind the scenes like the quality of the transport, the hotels and so on. This stuff may seem trivial to us but it makes a huge difference and was just the sort of thing that Roy Keane used to go on about with the ROI. As I've said on another thread, we are good internationally at rugby (sometimes) because it's pushed in schools at the expense of football. Until that is rectified it's going to be difficult for any Welsh manager to get any success or even a decent sized pool of players to choose from.
Swamp Summed up in your last line, "got the players playing". Something Toshack could never do, he had the motivational skills of a plank of wood. In fact if I was that plank I would be insulted at the comparison. Another poster mentioned about Toshack bringing on the youngsters. He had no choice as he alienated so many senior players.
Nope just think he is the wrong man in charge, this will be borne out when we don't qualify for the world cup!
Given the small pool of players available, therefore always being at the mercy of injuries, suspensions & club withdrawals. Also minus a top class striker to our name. Who do you suggest could get them doing any better than they currently are?? The transformation in the last few games is remarkable. How you can't give Speed any credit for that is astonishing!! Also it's hardly land-breaking to predict they won't qualify for the WC given their record since '58!! I just hope Bale, Ramsey, Crofts et al & 'our' own Swans boys' prove you wrong!!......
Speed is relatively unproven at any level as a number one, but so was Hughes when he had the job. We've won competitive games back to back for the first time in 6 years and put tactics in place to bottle up the best England had to offer while still creating a couple of chances, so no '11 men behind the ball' approach. I'm not saying Speed is definitely the man and as with everyone who has the job, they are working with limited resource. Unless you can come up with a suggestion as to who could do better, we need to support what we have. There isn't a queue of top notch managers for the post and given what they have to work with, would we have a team that is that much better? 10%, 15% maybe, but not World beaters. Given that Speed has already made us 10 - 15 % better, would there actually be any improvement? Trying to be light hearted and not intending to run the boys down, but you can't polish a turd!
Have to agree with the majority of posters. After a rocky start (not unexpected after the Toshack debacle) Speed has done well, has the players with him and is getting more support from the clubs as well to enable him to get his best side out from the those who are fit to play. The proof of the pudding will be in the World Cup Qualifiers and if we fail then I guess he will have had his chance and be moved on. However I am much more positive than I was after the Bulgaria home game and look forward to the WC games - particularly Macedonia at home. Will that be played at CCS or the Liberty I wonder?
i would be reluctant to call the toshack tenure a debacle, but he didnt do himself any favours. i've said before he has a varied and successful CV, but he had his hands tied behind his back in that he couldnt get any continuity as the attitude of many of the players was that they didnt want to play for wales (or toshack), and an injury list as long as any manager has had to deal with. where was simon davies last season? he was playing for fulham. ramsey broke his leg shortly after starring in a 4-0 win? toshacks fault? formation and tactics wise you have to say he didnt excell, but with the players at his disposal could anyone have done better? well who knows but whats clear is that whoever succceeded toshack would get the team back up the rankings as things hit rock bottom. we have enough players to be at the same level as a scotland or better, ireland, who have shown us what can be achieved with a decent mix of good premiership players and good common sense management, by that i mean getting your best players wanting to play for the shirt and putting them in a formation they are all familiar with. we have outstanding individuals. but we didnt have, it seems, a team that played for the manager and their country in the previous management. you could expect that having a foreign manager but under a welshman thats hard to take. it was clear by watching extensive highlights of the ireland armenia game that the players played for each other with a passion you rarely see in a wales performance. maybe thats because they have workmanlike players like dunne, oshea and doyle but they grind out wins, something you dont get with wales, either they win or get thumped. why? for jager to have a pop at speed right now is embarassingly short sighted, bordering on completely unrealistic expectations of a wales manager. he was thrust in mid campaign, took a while to settle but once he got his ideas through, which the players have gone on record as saying they are enjoying the new training methods, with the players we had and his passion for the welsh game it is not surprising at all to see the team improving. now i'm not saying the current teams we have beaten recently are good teams, in fact bulgaria played like they couldnt care less about the campaign, they had just sacked their manager and they were without all their best players, however we went away from home and won, something new to most of those players, that probably helps building a winning mentality. we are bottom seeds in the next qualifying campaign. belgium and serbia are excellent teams, much better than what many people on here might think. macedonia (managed by toshack) and scotland are both beatable but both tough games. there are no easy games in this group so every point will be hard earned. if speed can get us into the top 4 out of 6 teams then that would represent very good progress, i know its low expectations but with the teams in that group its not going to be easy
The cynical side of me thinks the FAW will try and cash in on the anticipation and (dare I say it) raised expectation of the Welsh football public and move all the games to the Millenium Stadium... . Agree with Swamp it wont be an easy group but it's certainly doable. I wasn't jumping for joy when Speed was appointed but to be fair, he walked into a disaster zone and has turned them into a decent, hard working team who have now got a winning mentality. Ok, we didn't qualify again but thats not Speeds fault so how he can be held accountable is beyond me. Time will tell whether we head off to Rio but at this stage, Speed deserves all the credit he gets.
Swamp I am not embarrassed at all, I stand by all I said in this thread, I don't think speed is the answer for us, we won against weak opposition in the last 3 games, yes i know we can only play those in front of us, but his tactics was shown up by the other games we played. If we qualify for the world cup under him I will hold up my hands and say I was wrong, but if we don't qualify he will be like the others who have held the position for over 50 years a failure. I will back Wales for any sport , but I am sorry I won't put my hands in my pocket to watch them as the FAW are partly responsible for the god awfulness over the years, and I will not furnish their nests by going to games and making out all is ok!
Norwich23, both did well but Morrison didn't get that many opportunities to shine. Croft was busy and contributed well in a fine team performance. As expected, Bale and Ramsey were the stand-out players.
