If Tosh was a failure, you can 'dress it up' all you want, but ultimately Mark Hughes was too!! Afterall he failed to get us to a major finals too!! All that whilst having so many experienced players at his disposal & full stadiums to play in front of! The way he 'bottled-it' against Russia sickened me. That was a chance!! He didn't do anything for the future of Welsh football, there was different coach at every level of youth, all with their own self-interest!! There was no continuity & Tosh could see that when he came in. That's why he put Flynn in charge of the whole set-up!! We are maybe at last, 'reaping the rewards' for that foresight. Gary Speed is doing a cracking job. Many 'slagged' his appointment, but he's got the players in a winning mentality now. Only thing, we still don't have any top-class strikers coming through. We've risen the rankings, yes, something I'm also chuffed about. But if people think that's all down to Speed. Well that's a load of old Tosh!!...
Well said mate, and you're right about Jimmy. 26 up to this article, anyway! http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Football: Jimmy's kids fail again; Wales U21 1 Italy U21 2.-a092942370
With regard to the higher attendances during Hughes' tenure, weren't ticket prices heavily discounted for many of the games? I'm not saying that it wasn't the case during Tosh's time, I really can't remember, but, if they were, certainly not to the same extent. The only way to compare the two manager's performances would be to swap their teams. What would Tosh have done with Hughes' squad and vice versa? Obviously we can't do that, we can only guess but I think that Tosh would have bettered Hughes' record with his squad. Equally obvious is that many will disagree but football is all about opinion and that is the fun of it.
players were happy under sparky they was not under tosh, simple...Fans were happy under sparky (72,000+) they were not under tosh (10,000-)..
The Toshack camp will always argue black is white, and while I like Toshack, his management skills are not the best, and when you consider this is a results driven game, then regardless of the respective teams they had, Mark Hughes clearly had the greater success with Wales. Dai has given you the stark contrast between the two managers, were the tens of thousands of Welsh supporters wrong, when they wouldn't turn up to watch Toshacks negative and prehistoric game plan, were the numerous players that walked all wrong (Forget Savage), Didn't Toshack himself state "Judge me by the 2010 World Cup campaign,"?? It's easy for the Toshack camp to ignore the real facts, because they are the reality, to which they don't like to acknowledge, and so move to pick holes in the obvious success of his predecessor Hughes, but don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Mark Hughes, but he did achieve greater things with Wales than Toshack ever did, regardless of the respective hands they each were dealt. When Jason Koumas announced his retirement from international football (Blessing in disguise) he became the 17th player to abdicate under Toshack, and that is an indictment of Toshacks era, that will never go away, even the few games that went well, where ruined by toshack, and I refer to one example of the Russian game, (There were not many) the performance in that game was good until Toshack ruined it, with his bizarre substitution in the dying minutes. Out of interest, how often did Toshack go to watch games where his players featured? the answer is in the question. Toshack at one stage claimed we needed 4 points from the two games (World Cup), but at no time did he make any discernible change to the tactics when it was obvious to all that we were not getting any efforts on goal! But the most damning aspect of his management style was that he did not bring any confidence to the team, His tactics were to say the least, mind crushingly negative and were usually ineffective. The players were never encouraged to express themselves, because it was always about 'not losing' and if the FAW really cared about bringing success to Wales then they should have found a way to have dumped Toshack, long before he walked. The Toshack camp, will always tell you that Toshack is one of the best managers in the game, and highly underrated, but history will tell you something completely different. ................. please log in to view this image
