Wales' qualifying campaign

People over here are divided on whether John Toshack should go or not after this campaign. Most people, myself included, think we should have done better than we have, but some argue we're only doing as well as we can expect to do for a nation of our size and current squad strength. After the 2-1 loss to Finland yesterday the debate has really heated up. I decided to post this here to get some hopefully impartial views on this debate. Many of you probably don't know much about our squad but I know that there are some out there who will be able to offer some informed opinions. Quality over quantity of posts would be appreciated here.

Here's the group table and our results to date:

P W D L Pts
Germany 9 8 1 0 25
Russia 9 7 0 2 21
Finland 9 5 2 2 17
Wales 9 3 0 6 9
Azerbaijan 9 1 1 7 4
Liechtenstein 9 0 2 7 2

Results:

Wales 1-0 Azerbaijan
Russia 2-1 Wales
Germany 1-0 Wales
Wales 2-0 Liechtenstein
Wales 0-2 Finland
Wales 0-2 Germany
Azerbaijan 0-1 Wales
Wales 1-3 Russia
Finland 2-1 Wales
Liechtenstein v Wales (Wed 14 Oct)

Is this an acceptable level of performance, or are we underachieving?

Hi Cymro. You definetely should be doing better. And I never buy into the small nation bit. I watched your two away games to Russia and Germany and especially against Russia thought Wales weer the better team. You have one of the outstanding forwards around anywhere in Bellamy. Collins is playing well for Villa. And you have enough good players (Ramsey, Vaughan)in your squad to be pushing for 2nd place finishes. I expected Wales to push Russia all the way for second place and I would be looking to bring in a better manager at this stage. If Trap was manager of Wales would you have done a lot better? I think so. It might be time for the Welsh FA to follow the example of the FAI and bring in a "foreign" manager with a proven record.

Realistically Wales had no chance of being anywhere near Germany or Russia but i think they should be pushing Finland alot closer for third spot, It all adds up in the end, if they had of finished third in this campaign they would have been in pot 3 in the next qualifying campaign and then they might have got a good draw and you never know what can happen then, so i say it was a poor campaign for them

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Originally Posted by Cymro

Is this an acceptable level of performance, or are we underachieving?

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The group is harder than it looks. Lichtenstein are the only very poor team in it. Azeri football has had a lot of government investment of late (you can see this with the clubs getting a bit further in CL and Uefa qualification esp this year) and they have also started looking for 2nd generation Azeri's and ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who left Baku (one of the most mixed cities in the Soviet Union the 1980s) when the USSR fell apart and signed them up for the Azeri team. They have / had 2-3 Brazilian born players playing for them a while ago.

I think you've drastically underperformed against the Finns, as I recall both matches were lost. This is dissapointing as man for man their squad is probably slightly weaker than yours. I saw all of the game in Russia last year and bits of the one in Cardiff and I thought the performance out in Russia was very creditable, I think - aside from Germany - you pushed the Russians the hardest in the head to head ties. The Finns collapsed against Russia, but actually snatched a draw in Helsinki against the Germans.

It seems like the fixtures ran against you with a lot of the hard ones happening early on, and then after the home defeat to the Finns you seemed to give up. I guess with Toshack it's a question of does his experience and desire bring more value than the problems he has (or seems to) with senior players. There must be something a bit strange going on with the likes of Koumas and now apparently Bellamy quitting. I would be tempted to keep Toshack simply because he's a reasonable manager, who has a good knowledge of the world game - at least he will be prepared in terms of knowledge of the opposition. If he was to go, who could you bring in ? I dont think the Welsh FA has a huge amount of money, so most of the decent candidates would have to be Welsh or tied to Wales by sentiment... maybe Dean Saunders ?

I think Wales should have been much closer to Finland in terms of overall points tally but your results elsewhere look 'decent' bar the Finland home game. You weren't really outclassed in any fixture and by all accounts held your own against two of the best teams in Europe.

Has Koumas retired?

Bellamy is a top player and Ramsey is a prospect but other than Collin's at centre back there are no established PL performers. Gunter is a good young full back and Bale was supposed to be the next best thing...... but Wales seem to lack top flight experience. Somebody like Robbie Savage (I'm assuming he has retired or fell out with the Tosh?) sitting in midfield would help the younger fellas.

Thanks for your replies.

edmundo - To be honest both times we played Azerbaijan I thought they were pretty poor. The game out in Baku was awkward, but that was more because the ball spent so much time at head and shoulder height that we couldn't get it down and actually play. No doubt they're not the worst team in Europe but home and away wins is about what I'd expect from them myself.

I agree about the performances in some games such as Russia home and away, and Germany away - I thought we competed well. But as you say, we've underperformed against the Finns. We should have been able to beat them or at least battle to a draw on Saturday I felt, but just seemed to completely fade away in the second half. Even though Toshack had a lot of injury problems for the game, we still had a first XI of 6 Premiership players (4 regulars) and 5 Championship regulars. Not a good enough effort, unfortuantely.

I haven't generally believed the story that Toshack is somehow driving players towards international retirement, but it does seem that we are losing a lot of players, Koumas as you say has retired, and although I can't find any evidence for Bellamy quitting, if he did that would be utterly awful. Even if he's not directly at fault, I still feel a change of manager might bring some players back into the fold, because some players no doubt have been disillusioned by recent results. Other than that, I feel Toshack has been a little weak tactically in this campaign, particularly in the two Finnish games where they turned it around in the second half both times.

As for who we would go for, a lot of people are saying Brian Flynn because he has a superb record coaching the under-21s who nearly qualified for the last under-21 championships (losing 5-4 to England in the play-offs) and are now top of their current group by a fair margin. Other options might be Chris Coleman or maybe Tony Pulis, although I'm not certain if Pulis would quit Stoke to manage us. A foreigner is unlikely given the FAW's near-perfect record of appointing Welsh managers, but after watching what Trappatoni has done for you guys might be a good bet.

Been alluded to in a couple of posts Cymru but likelwise I think the difference between this campaign being good or bad for Wales is the Finland results. Turn those into wins and Wales have a more commendable 15 to Finlands 11.

I don't believe in change for change sake either so I'd hold onto Tosh for another campaign. I know he's had fallings out with Savage and probably Koumas -but who hasn't?

Although Toshack's CV is relatively impressive, though not a huge amount of trophies, my overriding memory of him is his punditry for TV3. He clearly knew a bit more about the obscure names in World Football but I found his analysis absolute nonsense. I don't think he could be doing a whole pile worse as Wales coach so I'd be inclined to get rid of him as things could surely only improve.

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

Although Toshack's CV is relatively impressive, though not a huge amount of trophies, my overriding memory of him is his punditry for TV3. He clearly knew a bit more about the obscure names in World Football but I found his analysis absolute nonsense. I don't think he could be doing a whole pile worse as Wales coach so I'd be inclined to get rid of him as things could surely only improve.

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Who would you bring in that would do a better job based on what's available to them?

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Originally Posted by Lionel Ritchie

Been alluded to in a couple of posts Cymru but likelwise I think the difference between this campaign being good or bad for Wales is the Finland results. Turn those into wins and Wales have a more commendable 15 to Finlands 11.

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Granted, but we didn't deserve to win either game against Finland, which is the main reason why many think Toshack should now go. Beating Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein home and away is more or less expected for us, as is losing home and away to Germany and Russia. The whole campaign was about whether we could be competitive and get results against teams around our level with the current management, and we haven't. I wouldn't say it's change for change's sake, I think a change is needed.

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Originally Posted by Rafa B

Who would you bring in that would do a better job based on what's available to them?

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Don't really know who they're capable of attracting but they'd only have to turn up to equal Toshack's achievements. Who would have thought we'd land Trap? Toshack has almost 3 full campaigns now with Wales and with the exception of their amazing win in Slovakia, I think I'd struggle to name another really impressive scoreline, open to correction of course. Wales had only just missed out of qualification the campaign before he took charge, granted their selection was a bit better that time.

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

Don't really know who they're capable of attracting but they'd only have to turn up to equal Toshack's achievements. Who would have thought we'd land Trap? Toshack has almost 3 full campaigns now with Wales and with the exception of their amazing win in Slovakia, I think I'd struggle to name another really impressive scoreline, open to correction of course. Wales had only just missed out of qualification the campaign before he took charge, granted their selection was a bit better that time.

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So you don't know who could come in and improve things fair enough that's all i asked. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Rafa B

So you don't know who could come in and improve things fair enough that's all i asked. Thanks.

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I know plenty of people that could come in an improve things but don't know if Wales could get them. You're welcome.

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

I know plenty of people that could come in an improve things but don't know if Wales could get them. You're welcome.

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Go on name them i dare you;)

I could give you a list of top class managers but I don't know what's available to them, making your original question impossible to answer accurately by the way. Give me the list of what's available to them and I'll select who I like off it. All I know is Toshack is there since 2004, has done a crap job in my opinion, so give somebody else a chance. I think Chris Coleman would be a good choice but he's would probably see himself as being too young for International Management and would prefer day-to-day, I could be wrong though.

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

I could give you a list of top class managers but I don't know what's available to them, making your original question impossible to answer accurately by the way. Give me the list of what's available to them and I'll select who I like off it. All I know is Toshack is there since 2004, has done a crap job in my opinion, so give somebody else a chance. I think Chris Coleman would be a good choice but he's would probably see himself as being too young for International Management and would prefer day-to-day, I could be wrong though.

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Wales haven't got the players at the moment in simple terms. Any time they came close to qualifying they had a good squad of players. The current manager may not be doing well but at least he's having a go at it. Loads of managers out there who wouldn't have the b*lls to take it on for fear of failure.

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Originally Posted by Rafa B

Wales haven't got the players at the moment in simple terms. Any time they came close to qualifying they had a good squad of players. The current manager may not be doing well but at least he's having a go at it. Loads of managers out there who wouldn't have the b*lls to take it on for fear of failure.

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Every manager is every job is having a go at it, hardly a good enough reason to keep him. I agree they don't have the players but they are 8pts behind Finland, I don't think that's good enough in simple terms!!

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

Every manager is every job is having a go at it, hardly a good enough reason to keep him. I agree they don't have the players but they are 8pts behind Finland, I don't think that's good enough in simple terms!!

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Sorry i meant how many put themselves forward for the Wales job when it's available. Think Joe Royle did last time;) Tells a lot.

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Originally Posted by Cymro

Quality over quantity of posts would be appreciated here.

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Oops!! sorry, Rafa started it though:o

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

Oops!! sorry, Rafa started it though:o

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Started what? Gave an opinion that didn't agree with yours. Oops can't be doing that:) Not!