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Must say, with Euro 88 and Italia 90 a distant memory for me (first game of football I ever watched was Stuttgart in 88), I watched the repeat of Ireland v USSR from Euro 88 when it was on Setanta around the New Year and was surprised at how well we played. In fact, we completely played them off the park for most of the match, but some horrendous refereeing and one defensive blip cost us the win. Far from 90 minutes of hoofball though.
I think that performance v Soviets is generally accepted as our finest footballing performace of the modern era( probably ever).I was at the game, behind the goal where we were denied the most stonewall penalty, while leading 1-0.As it happened even a victory then would not have been enough, as Kiefts late strike for Holland sent them through to play West Germany in the semi' and ultimate victory at Euro '88.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
John Toshack. His team got stuffed in Cyprus as well ;)
John Toshack is a good manager but I dont think he is the right guy for the Wales job.
But if Stan was crucified because of his Cyprus result, should not also Toshack be similarly pilloried?Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilMcD
Yeah but the differene is that Toshack has 20 years of experience and has shown that he has and can be a good manager who knows the game. Clearly he is not getting his point across to the Welsh players. Also Ireland have a much better squad than the Welsh do.
What are you saying? Despite having 5 or 6 Premiership players, it's not the manager's fault that they were well beaten by Cyprus (13 shots to 4) and it's ok because he's not getting his message across? What's good enough for Stan must be good enough for Toshack. Toshack out! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilMcD
What I am saying is that Wales are a poor team and I did not expect them to beat Cyprus in Cyprus were we lost and the Germans drew and the Czechs still have to play there. Wales are a good bit worse than us and the Cypiots have Champions League players so I would say them and Wales are pretty much the same level.
Toshack has shown for the last 20 years he can manage teams so I am not goign to judge his managerial abilities on one job after 20 years of managment. He probably does not have the right personality for the Welsh job at the moment and I think he would probably be better with quality players but I think he is trying to get average players to do things that only really good players can do.
Toshack should take the blame for losing 3-1 defeat along with the players but he is still a good manager. Just like Paul Jewel is a good manager despite not doing a good job at Wednesday.
No, we were still awful in Cyprus, however you dress it up. Our individuals aren't that poor, most play in the top 2 divisions in England which is a decent standard. Toshack may not deserve the flack for the players' deficiencies but he does deserve the flack for getting rid of good players like Danny Collins, Oster, David Cotterill etc. I'm not talking about Savage incidentally he can rot in hell but the others have all been treated harshly by Toshack.
I was previously behind him but the performances aren't really getting better and we don't look like even challenging in the 2010 qualifiers which was our main goal. If we don't beat San Marino and then you guys I think he should leave.
He is obviously a good coach but not a good man-manager. You can't teach players who play high-tempo route one 11 months of the year to be technical geniuses when they pull on a different colour shirt. And maybe he should have thought of that before p1ssing off Premiership regulars like Oster and D Collins, who haven't really done that much to deserve it.
It wasn't so much the result in Cyprus I'm annoyed about since they are difficult to beat at home, but surely we could have competed a bit better. Cyprus would never have got back into the game if we'd got more physical with them. That was a tactical blunder by Toshack, in my opinion. And the problem is we never want to play a physical, high-tempo style even against opponents who are better than us techinically.
Hughes achieved far more with Wales than Toshack has, with a similar player pool, despite not having anything near the same level of experience at management
Actually Hughes didn't achieve that much either for the most part (2 mediocre campaigns and one good one, achieved mostly on the back of some lucky results) and had a far better pool of talent to pick from. I think the side that won 4 games in a row at the start of the Euro 2004 campaign was entirely made up of Premiership regulars with a squad of Championship regulars/Premiership semi-regulars. We'd kill for a squad that good right now, which is why Toshack's abysmal man-management and arrogance is starting to test the patience of some Welsh fans. We need every Premiership regular we can get (apart from Savage, maybe)
You have a point BUT the difference in the two is Toshack has earned the right to f*** up. Toshack also felt the need to consider his position in the wake of their poor result there. Stan portrayed his "being in here for the long haul" as a virtue.Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
The only comparitive result Stan really has in his favour is the far from satisfactory 1-0 defeat of Slovakia compared to Wales home collapse against them. Wales did however put that some way right by going to Slovakia and thumping them while we ...well we know what we did there and no-one was surprised when we did it.