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Post by cadno on Dec 1, 2022 19:39:10 GMT
Attacking wise yes, defensively that’s up for debate! Both have room to improve. Not really kidding, Bale Moore James have shown us close to nothing in this tournament. I can think of a handful of times we’ve caused opposition trouble in this tournament, something has got to change. Williams is better defensively, which is saying something! His defending has certainly improved whilst Roberts has never convinced defensively for me I don't think the attack can be blamed too much when they've been carrying a player whilst also having no midfield to build off. Playing worse players there will not help at all. As much as I like Mark Harris I don't think you can justify starting him ahead of Moore and James or even someone like Ryan Hedges. Bradshaw's ship sailed long ago Why not give both a go, Harris is faster /deffo sharper over the first 10/15 yards, and can run the channels/drag opposition. Bradshaw can also do this and his link up play/bringing the team forward is very good- similar to Simon Church. Hedges and Harris both deserve a chance ahead of Dan James now. |
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Post by iot on Dec 1, 2022 19:57:39 GMT
Well, if we want to give up on any realistic prospect of qualifying for what's set to be a great Euros in Germany, then sure, why not! Surely you must admit we’ve been the worst team in this tournament. If trying new players out isn’t the answer then what needs to change? Because at the moment the defence we’ve been picking have been ripped apart by decent teams and conceded loads when it matters, and we haven’t been scoring enough goals! It's like 00s Man U going on a bad run and saying, we've given Giggs, Beckam, Scholes, Keane and Ferdinand enough chances now, we need to turn to Nicky Butt, Wes Brown and Luke Chadwick. It would be totally ridiculous to start poor championship players over decent premier league ones just to 'try new players' in what will be make or break qualifiers. It wouldn't even be a case of trying new players because the likes of Harris and Lockyer have plenty of caps and we know what they're all about. I can guarantee you that we would lose heavily and 99% of fans would want Page gone immediately, with good reason too. The obvious answer is not to completely lose our senses in player selection but try to return to the type of structure and performances we were producing pre–World Cup. Others have suggested bringing in fresh ideas on the coaching staff, which I wouldn't mind seeing. |
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Post by jimexotic on Dec 1, 2022 20:01:17 GMT
Some new ideas would be very welcome but not radical changes to personnel, just a few tweaks and I think we're fine, fine-ish.
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Post by CrackityJones on Dec 1, 2022 20:05:02 GMT
Shame this is our first game and not Latvia at home. Could do with an easy fixture in front of our own fans to clear the air and not another very tough fixture
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Post by 1gwaunview on Dec 1, 2022 20:06:20 GMT
Cannot see many left field changes in personnel occurring in the early Euro qualifiers myself, maybe more gametime for Colwill if he's fit and Sorba Thomas perhaps. Any retirements might change things though.
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Post by fiveattheback on Dec 1, 2022 20:07:17 GMT
Some new ideas would be very welcome but not radical changes to personnel, just a few tweaks and I think we're fine, fine-ish. We need to develop a plan for when we have the ball beyond "Hopefully Gareth does something" |
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Post by cadno on Dec 1, 2022 20:23:07 GMT
Surely you must admit we’ve been the worst team in this tournament. If trying new players out isn’t the answer then what needs to change? Because at the moment the defence we’ve been picking have been ripped apart by decent teams and conceded loads when it matters, and we haven’t been scoring enough goals! It's like 00s Man U going on a bad run and saying, we've given Giggs, Beckam, Scholes, Keane and Ferdinand enough chances now, we need to turn to Nicky Butt, Wes Brown and Luke Chadwick. It would be totally ridiculous to start poor championship players over decent premier league ones just to 'try new players' in what will be make or break qualifiers. It wouldn't even be a case of trying new players because the likes of Harris and Lockyer have plenty of caps and we know what they're all about. I can guarantee you that we would lose heavily and 99% of fans would want Page gone immediately, with good reason too. The obvious answer is not to completely lose our senses in player selection but try to return to the type of structure and performances we were producing pre–World Cup. Others have suggested bringing in fresh ideas on the coaching staff, which I wouldn't mind seeing. I start Allen and Ramsey in my line up! You can hardly call Rodon or Mepham our version of Ferdinand, our defensive record is terrible! And we struggle to score goals too! |
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Post by cadno on Dec 1, 2022 20:32:42 GMT
Who are our version of these players in their prime then?? Giggs … Dan James?! Beckam… Bale?? Scholes… Ramsey? Keane… Allen? and Ferdinand….  Rodon?? Hardly comparable! Un-droppable? |
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Post by conwy10 on Dec 1, 2022 22:17:12 GMT
Attacking wise yes, defensively that’s up for debate! Both have room to improve. Not really kidding, Bale Moore James have shown us close to nothing in this tournament. I can think of a handful of times we’ve caused opposition trouble in this tournament, something has got to change. Williams is better defensively, which is saying something! His defending has certainly improved whilst Roberts has never convinced defensively for me I don't think the attack can be blamed too much when they've been carrying a player whilst also having no midfield to build off. Playing worse players there will not help at all. As much as I like Mark Harris I don't think you can justify starting him ahead of Moore and James or even someone like Ryan Hedges. Bradshaw's ship sailed long ago I can't remember too much about off the top of my head, but wasn't the USA goal and Iran sending off because someone got free on Necos side? I do think he'll be an amazing player one day but he hasn't come on as I'd thought yet. |
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Post by conwy10 on Dec 1, 2022 22:32:53 GMT
Williams is better defensively, which is saying something! His defending has certainly improved whilst Roberts has never convinced defensively for me I don't think the attack can be blamed too much when they've been carrying a player whilst also having no midfield to build off. Playing worse players there will not help at all. As much as I like Mark Harris I don't think you can justify starting him ahead of Moore and James or even someone like Ryan Hedges. Bradshaw's ship sailed long ago Why not give both a go, Harris is faster /deffo sharper over the first 10/15 yards, and can run the channels/drag opposition. Bradshaw can also do this and his link up play/bringing the team forward is very good- similar to Simon Church. Hedges and Harris both deserve a chance ahead of Dan James now. I was going to say how ridiculous it was, but googled Dan James instead. His career record is... Club - 127 appearances, 15 goals. One in 8.4 His ratio for Wales is 8.2 It's entirely plausible he won't score in the entire Euro qualifying group. |
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Post by cadno on Dec 1, 2022 22:50:28 GMT
Bradshaw has 90+ goals to his name, around the same amount as Kieffer Moore (I’m not saying he’s better, but he offers something different)… he hasn’t set the world alight with goals but he’s good at other aspects too, bringing others into play, movement on and off the ball. Just because he’s 30, I don’t see why that should make the wales squad a closed shop for him.
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Post by iot on Dec 1, 2022 22:51:20 GMT
It's all relative. The difference in quality between Brennan Johnson and Dan James to a Mark Harris or Tom Bradshaw is the comparison I was making, not comparing our players to Man United's legends
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Post by cadno on Dec 1, 2022 22:56:45 GMT
Dan James hasn’t performed well for us in this tournament, I’d argue he’s droppable for someone like Brennan or Mark Harris, Tom Lawrence, Ryan Hedges on current form.
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Post by allezlesrouges on Dec 2, 2022 11:30:11 GMT
If you're looking at wiki, it's not always completely accurate for stats, transfermarkt is usually better. That says he has 20 goals and 24 assists at club level in 161 games. That's roughly a goal contribution 1 in every 4 games
For Wales, it's 5 goals and 5 assists in 41 games. So again, a goal contribution of 1 in 4. It's not amazing but not terrible. We could probably expect a goal and an assist from him across the qualifying campaign. We'd hope for more from one of our forwards, but in the past it's worked to have his workrate and relying on goals from Bale/Ramsey/Moore
Given that goals are drying up from Bale/Ramsey, I feel DJs workrate isn't enough to keep him in the XI with a 1 in 4 contribution
Let's compare to Brennan at club level. 126 appearances, 34 goals and 23 assists. He's working at about a goal contribution every every 2.5 games. At international level it's 2 goals and 2 assists in 18 games, so just under 1 in 4, however, these are mostly substitute appearances AND are mostly against better opposition as he's mostly played in the Nations League and World Cup
His club form suggests if we give Brennan the starts he's got more goals in him, and I think he's better under pressure on the ball in tight situations, better against deep defences, and more composed than DJ. For me, he has to start moving forwards
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Post by conwy10 on Dec 2, 2022 22:42:20 GMT
The worrying thing though is without Bale who will score. Looking at Wikipedia we've got Moore with a decent return, Wilson and James on 5 each which is OK, but it's not a progressive pattern they've just happened to score at times. The rest of the forwards we've tried are awful and Roberts and RND are outscoring them.
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Post by conwy10 on Dec 2, 2022 22:48:30 GMT
Surely you must admit we’ve been the worst team in this tournament. If trying new players out isn’t the answer then what needs to change? Because at the moment the defence we’ve been picking have been ripped apart by decent teams and conceded loads when it matters, and we haven’t been scoring enough goals! It's like 00s Man U going on a bad run and saying, we've given Giggs, Beckam, Scholes, Keane and Ferdinand enough chances now, we need to turn to Nicky Butt, Wes Brown and Luke Chadwick. It would be totally ridiculous to start poor championship players over decent premier league ones just to 'try new players' in what will be make or break qualifiers. It wouldn't even be a case of trying new players because the likes of Harris and Lockyer have plenty of caps and we know what they're all about. I can guarantee you that we would lose heavily and 99% of fans would want Page gone immediately, with good reason too. The obvious answer is not to completely lose our senses in player selection but try to return to the type of structure and performances we were producing pre–World Cup. Others have suggested bringing in fresh ideas on the coaching staff, which I wouldn't mind seeing. What about Kieffer Moore over Sam Vokes? Wasn't that Premier League and League One at the time? |
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Post by dai on Dec 2, 2022 23:01:01 GMT
I really enjoyed watching Serbia tonight with two proper, mobile CF's in Mitrovic and Vlahovic -they were causing big trouble for the Swiss defence. Can't understand why the manager took Vlahovic off, they declined a lot after that.
Granted, they both are miles better than what we have, but I'd like to see us trying something like that. Another true CF alongside Moore, and less of this false 9, playing off a striker nonsense. Who could we try? Bradshaw, Jephcott, Doidge? It's a shame we're not seeing anyone come through.
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Post by fiveattheback on Dec 3, 2022 0:51:06 GMT
Moore & Vokes were both in the Championship when Moore was first called up if that's what you mean. Vokes was also in that squad
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Post by iot on Dec 3, 2022 9:28:30 GMT
Solved it. Moore and Bradshaw, none of this playing off a striker nonsense. The Croats won't know what hit them. Just wait until we unleash Jephcott and Doidge on them. Can't believe Page has been so blind to this
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Post by dai on Dec 3, 2022 9:30:30 GMT
Hilarious, yes, let's stick with our current plan of failing to f*cking score when Bale is either crocked or not on the pitch.
C'mon then, how do we solve our lack of potency in the final third? Don't say stick with the same lineup and formation because it hasn't been working for almost 2 years now.
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Post by iot on Dec 3, 2022 9:32:00 GMT
It's like 00s Man U going on a bad run and saying, we've given Giggs, Beckam, Scholes, Keane and Ferdinand enough chances now, we need to turn to Nicky Butt, Wes Brown and Luke Chadwick. It would be totally ridiculous to start poor championship players over decent premier league ones just to 'try new players' in what will be make or break qualifiers. It wouldn't even be a case of trying new players because the likes of Harris and Lockyer have plenty of caps and we know what they're all about. I can guarantee you that we would lose heavily and 99% of fans would want Page gone immediately, with good reason too. The obvious answer is not to completely lose our senses in player selection but try to return to the type of structure and performances we were producing pre–World Cup. Others have suggested bringing in fresh ideas on the coaching staff, which I wouldn't mind seeing. What about Kieffer Moore over Sam Vokes? Wasn't that Premier League and League One at the time? No, they weren't. My point is, turning to clearly inferior (and older) players - Mark Harris over Brennan Johnson, or Tom Bradshaw over Kieffer Moore, would be a ridiculous way to go about things. |
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Post by aberbeeg on Dec 3, 2022 9:39:51 GMT
How about some new coaching ideas? If we can’t change the players then we can change the stale 3 dinosaurs centre halves
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Post by iot on Dec 3, 2022 10:07:25 GMT
Honestly, scrolling through these threads, there must have been a 100+ different suggestions made, all wildly different from each other, and some of them just completely absurd. If nothing else, the fact that there isn't a modicum of consensus among the fanbase should demonstrate that there are no obvious, simple solutions. Page has received a lot of crap for picking League 2 players, and yet many are now suggesting we should go for non-league or players who can't get into poor SPL sides.
I suspect there's more to it when we're 'failing to f*cking score' than coming out with 'let's pick another striker, no matter how shit they are'. You're just coming out with reactionary nonsense that no serious football person would pay any attention to - I can guarantee you that neither Page, nor any other professional coach / manager would ever consider Doidge or Jephcott as a solution to our problems.
I'm afraid the solution is to take a much more level-headed approach, which I know won't satisfy your reactionary tendencies. I completely disagree that our gameplan hasn't been working for 2 years, when we've qualified for the World Cup and Nations League A in that period. The solution is not to just make changes for changes' sake, but to take a cold-headed look at the players available to us and a look at past performances to plan the best way forward. That will include some changes and tweaks, but also trying to recapture some of the things that were working well before the world cup.
Personally, I would go with Ward as first choice keeper from now on (despite his shoddy displays in the world cup).
I would persist with a midfield 3 of Ampadu, Allen, and Ramsey - Ramsey's still our highest performing advanced midfield at club level and whilst I have reservations about Ampadu in a double-pivot, we need to help him learn the position. Equally, I would start integrating the likes of Lowery and Jordan James over Matt Smith. I personally think Levitt has the potential to improve so would persist with him but would look to see what Lowery can do at the next opportunity.
In defence, if we start Ampadu in midfield as I think we'll need to, I think the starting 5 in the WC is the best available to us, although if Rodon continues to display such a lack of confidence and poor positioning, I would be tempted to start Mepham in the middle and Lockyer as the RCB. I would bring in either Owen Beck or Finn Stevens in place of Gunter, and again give them an opportunity in the next friendly / NL game.
Up front, I would start with 2 of James, Moore and Johnson, with Bale on the bench. For Croatia I would go with James and Moore, but against lesser sides I would start Johnson. For the likes of Latvia, I would go with a back 4 with Roberts dropping out and starting Johnson and James either side of Moore.
In terms of principles, I think we need to go back to being a team that's difficult to beat, that hits the opposition on the counter or catches them out with a high press. It's not the style I enjoy watching, it would probably mean we will invariably have little possession, but I think it's what suits our players. We have a decent defence, decent wing-backs, pacey forwards, but a poor midfield - so I don't think we should be looking to dominate possession.
The main improvements needed from the WC is to make us much more compact by sorting out the distances between the midfield, work on our press, and come up with a more coherent style in terms of how we hurt sides (beyond just hitting them on the break).
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Post by conwy10 on Dec 3, 2022 13:02:30 GMT
Moore & Vokes were both in the Championship when Moore was first called up if that's what you mean. Vokes was also in that squad Oh OK. I thought it was Burnley in the Prem and Barnsley in League One. |
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Post by marsvolta on Dec 3, 2022 13:20:08 GMT
Moore and Vokes were in the squad at the same time at the start so Moore wasn’t selected ahead of Vokes originally.
A far as the division of the clubs is concerned, technically you are right but Vokes was either not in the squad or an unused substitute and was very much on his way down, as evidenced by his eventual move to Wycombe.
When Moore was selected Barnsley were just being promoted to the Championship and were heading in the other direction.
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Post by conwy10 on Dec 3, 2022 13:31:17 GMT
So would people consider an inform league one player over an unused Premier league player? I'll be honest I'll consider it a step down, but if it has worked for us previously maybe we aren't in the position to refuse to consider it.
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Post by marsvolta on Dec 3, 2022 15:06:42 GMT
I suppose we’d need to take into consideration other factors as well.
If the Premier league sub was an exciting young prospect it would be different than if it was an ageing player who is only there as he is seeing his contract out with the club having no intention of renewing it.
Same with the League 1 player, if he is a hot prospect bang on form with higher division clubs looking at him, it’s very different to a journeyman lower league player who happened to hit a short purple patch.
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Post by dai on Dec 5, 2022 17:46:29 GMT
Croatia, despite an ageing Modric and ageing squad keep on coming up with the goods. Not confident we’ll pick up any points against them in the qualifiers. Incredible team, tough as old boots.
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Post by insertname on Dec 5, 2022 18:02:57 GMT
They do look a tired side these days. They’re just blagging their way through like they did in 2018. It seems like a no-brainer that we need to try and use James and Johnson to give them some pace to worry about. But given the form James and Johnson are in you’d have to still back Croatia to deal with us, especially if Modric is not likely to retire until after the nations league finals
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Post by dai on Dec 5, 2022 18:08:18 GMT
Agree somewhat about looking tired, however they often grow into the game and are always pretty solid looking. Japan were all over them first half, but second half they were more in control and and grew stronger as the game went on. I remember when they knocked out England in the Euro's or WC a few years ago. Went to extra time and the English pundits were on about how England will win because Croatia were older, ageing and tired looking. Well, they were wrong. Always had a soft spot for Croatia.
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Rodon?? 