The rankings are really a bag of ****e England nor Wales would not even be favourites to beat teams like France and Italy Never mind have a realistic hope of winning against Spain or Chile, none of whom are in the top 10 !!!!
Wales climbed by not playing many friendlies which didn't dilute the points they had won in Qualifiers.
Got to hand it to Coleman and his team. I really didn't think he was up to the job when he got it, but admired that he took it despite having the problem of following Gary Speed. Early results and performances didn't help either but after that poor early period we've been really solid at the back and the players seem to be enjoying themselves.
yes. thet team has a good shape to it. If you've 14/15 really commited lads and talent you can do an awful lot. Hennessey in goal williams, davies at the back, cheseter collins, Allen, ramsey in mdifield Bale up front, vokes too, the thing is i bet the turn up every time. fair play to bale unlike some wants to be there. you don't need to go back to the obvious for wales.. england have this issue consistently every friendly there is a queue to avoid playing.
It seems like bale finds it a nice distraction from the pressure at Madrid. Still pressure at Wales but it's different kind as he is the top man and a couple of band games won't get the crowd on his back unlike at madrdi
True that. I reckon the camp must be a happy one... not a chore to go to as well. They are all turning up so success follows
It will be good to get as many home nations through as possible. Ashley Williams has the Wales defence as organised as the Swans, and with Joe Allen and Ramsey in the middle of the park we are starting to motor, helps to have Bale up front of course!..............
Glad you pointed out Ashley Williams & Joe Allen as key players. Only 2 goals conceded all campaign. One of which was a penalty (against Andorra) on one of the worst surfaces I've ever seen. So that's 1 goal conceded from open play in 6 games. Clean sheets against Bosnia & Herzegovina, Belgium x2 & Israel. Incredibly impressive and I think when people dismiss it, putting it down to us having Bale its really disrespectful to the work Coleman and his staff have done to change the formation and make us as solid as we've become. And also its disrespectful to our defenders who have all shown their worth and ability to the team. With this formation even players like Hal Robson-Kanu & Joe Ledley are showing their worth and are getting the most out of players alongside them.
And not too shabby a keeper either. When you have even 11 fit and committed guys you can go a long way in international football. England's problem has always been constant picking of flavour of the month players and low commitment to the cause.
Hennessey has been superb, agreed. Its an odd one really, Wales' national team has been viewed as a waste of time by most of the players for a long time. Players retiring before their time, not turning up to friendlies and just not being bothered about Wales in general. It lead to not even the fans or media even caring about the team. After Mark Hughes left and Toshack took over it was quite a grim time because almost all of our senior players and the core of our more successful side under Hughes (Giggs, Hartson, Speed, Delaney, Melville, Jones etc) had retired and we had nobody to replace them. But its resulted in us being almost forced to review our whole structure and youth development, and a lot of that credit should go to Toshack & Brian Flynn who changed everything about the set up and put a lot of faith in youngsters, partly because they were forced. I think the fact that a lot of these youngsters were given a chance at international level before they were established regulars at club level and a lot of them had release from club troubles when they came into the team (Bale at Spurs, Ramsey at Arsenal etc) has also added their loyalty and the fact they enjoy turning up to international duty. England need something like that but as a bigger nation they can't really afford 4 or 5 years of youngsters learning on the job and making mistakes as they'd be slaughtered and their reputation tarnished for a few years at least. They could do it with players like Barkley, Kane, Sterling, Oxlade, Stones, Shaw etc but no way would Hodgson risk something like that despite it probably being more beneficial in the long term than persisting with players like Milner, Jagielka, Cleverley etc who will never really be good enough.
Rubbish. We regularly saw the 'player of the month' over looked during the golden generation. Every single game was the same line-up; James, Terry, Rio, A.Cole, Gerrard, Lampard, Beckham, J.Cole, Owen and Rooney. the only questionable position was RB!
