Toshack

[iot]

Nov 2, 2022 23:44:56 GMT mrpicton79 said:

Nov 2, 2022 22:27:53 GMT iot said:

'Contriving strange arguments'  'tying ourselves in knots' - sorry, you're spouting absolute rubbish. Saying that Toshack had many faults and was not modern enough in his approach, but at the same time did blood players younger than most managers would have done, thereby leaving us with a more experienced and tighter-knit group come the Euro 16 qualifiers, is an entirely reasonable view to have. In fact, it's a view shared by many of the players - Gunter, Owain Tudur Jones, Ramsey and others have all said something similar. You're the one contradicting them in refusal to acknowledge any good that he did.

Yes he was old school, but he was managing Real Madrid just five years before taking the Wales job and Real Sociedad up to two years before taking over, so he clearly had a very high standing in the game up until he took the job

Of course, he managed Real Madrid twice, how silly of me questioning his management credentials.

All I'm saying is you and all the other Tosh-lovers greatly exaggerate how brave he was "blooding younger players" when in reality his hand was forced, and yes most managers probably would have selected the same personnel under the circumstances.

And you know current/recently retired players generally aren't a good gauge. They're too professional to come out publicly talking about how clueless he was (bar maybe Robbie Savage).

But anyway as others have said, we're just going round in circles here, so I'll stop spouting my absolute rubbish for the time being.

'yes most managers probably would have selected the same personnel under the circumstances.'

I think you're completely wrong on that. See below an extract from the Together Stronger documentary yesterday, which clearly shows how it was a deliberate strategy from the beginning to bring the average age down - i think it unlikely that most managers would have sacrificed short-term progress in the same way. 

Flynn said: "I had a call from John. He said, 'I've got something for you, a proposal. Where are you?' I was in Port Talbot and he was in Verdi's cafe in Swansea. 'Can you meet me in half an hour?'



"And that's how it all started. We put this plan together because he said the squad was too old. The average age was well over 26-27. He wanted to bring that down to 22-23...

Toshack wanted to breed a new team, but that is often easier said than done when pressure mounts as one qualification campaign after another faded away.



Even the manager branded a 3-1 defeat in a European Championships qualifier in Cyprus in 2007 as "one of the worst" Wales performances he had ever seen.



Young players such as midfielder Aaron Ramsey were grateful for the opportunities, but it was the bonds forged under this adversity that would prove so strong years later.



"The system was in place to give us opportunities to play at the highest level," Ramsey said.



"They were tough times but we stuck at it. We stuck together, especially the players who had been coming through at that time. We knew that eventually it would pay off."'

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63497013

Ridiculous for you to describe me as a 'Toshack lover' when I've been very critical of several things he did, I just take issue with your absolutist view on it. 

[derynglas]

Football is a results business as they say.So heres one for the detractors,
Tosh has more wins for Wales (22) than any other manager,and only lost one more.

As we saw last night though (and already knew) the most significant issue was bringing
in Brian Flynn to oversee the whole youth set up,which seemed shambolic before.
We saw how he brought in Ash and Hal,not a given,and no doubt quite a few others.

As for retirements,one mentioned has been Mark Delaney,but i know for a fact he never retired fro
Wales as such,his last ever game was the 2-1 loss against Czech Republic in Sept 2006,
spent the rest of that season trying to sort his knee out finally giving up in August 2007.

Im old school and remember a quote from Leighton James who said you dont retire from Wales,
Wales retires you.If some of them did retire because of Tosh i blame the players who i think
should have stuck around to help the kids.

Weve got an identity and a way of playing,players want to play for us.And in a few weeks were
going to our third tournament in 6 years.Go figure. But for me its not just that we happened
to produce a crop of great players,weve had that in the past,but the way they were
managed and brought in and Tosh takes a lot of credit for where we are today IMO.

[mrpicton79]

Nov 3, 2022 11:30:08 GMT iot said:

Nov 2, 2022 23:44:56 GMT mrpicton79 said:

Of course, he managed Real Madrid twice, how silly of me questioning his management credentials.

All I'm saying is you and all the other Tosh-lovers greatly exaggerate how brave he was "blooding younger players" when in reality his hand was forced, and yes most managers probably would have selected the same personnel under the circumstances.

And you know current/recently retired players generally aren't a good gauge. They're too professional to come out publicly talking about how clueless he was (bar maybe Robbie Savage).

But anyway as others have said, we're just going round in circles here, so I'll stop spouting my absolute rubbish for the time being.

'yes most managers probably would have selected the same personnel under the circumstances.'

I think you're completely wrong on that. See below an extract from the Together Stronger documentary yesterday, which clearly shows how it was a deliberate strategy from the beginning to bring the average age down - i think it unlikely that most managers would have sacrificed short-term progress in the same way. 

Flynn said: "I had a call from John. He said, 'I've got something for you, a proposal. Where are you?' I was in Port Talbot and he was in Verdi's cafe in Swansea. 'Can you meet me in half an hour?'



"And that's how it all started. We put this plan together because he said the squad was too old. The average age was well over 26-27. He wanted to bring that down to 22-23...

Toshack wanted to breed a new team, but that is often easier said than done when pressure mounts as one qualification campaign after another faded away.



Even the manager branded a 3-1 defeat in a European Championships qualifier in Cyprus in 2007 as "one of the worst" Wales performances he had ever seen.



Young players such as midfielder Aaron Ramsey were grateful for the opportunities, but it was the bonds forged under this adversity that would prove so strong years later.



"The system was in place to give us opportunities to play at the highest level," Ramsey said.



"They were tough times but we stuck at it. We stuck together, especially the players who had been coming through at that time. We knew that eventually it would pay off."'

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63497013

Ridiculous for you to describe me as a 'Toshack lover' when I've been very critical of several things he did, I just take issue with your absolutist view on it. 

Obviously we all watched the programme, we don't need a transcription of it.

"fuck we need players from somewhere!!" seems more borne out of panic and desperation than any calculating strategy to me. But if people want to buy that bs because they like Tosh then have at it I guess.

[marsvolta]

Nov 3, 2022 11:24:57 GMT insertname said:

He was never “that” good. Did Easter ever have a goal scoring run at championship level? I recall him mostly being a lower league striker apart from maybe 15 minutes of fame following his hot run in the FA cup with wycombe. I think he got called up for the same reasons as stated above: lack of options and throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck. To be fair to Tosh Bradshaw would probably have won a fair few caps back in those days because the cupboard was so bare up front that a player who goes on a scoring run once a season at championship level would have been a key player. That aside I agree with the general gist that Tosh’s promotion of youth is a bit over-stated and it wasn’t like he was surgical in who he brought in.

Yeah it was mostly in the lower divisions, he’d have a short run of girls then get a transfer for something like £100,000 and go quiet again for a while.
As I said, hewas never as good as Bradshaw, the similarity was the short burst of goals that would prompt calls for him to be included, followed by a dry patch where everyone would forget about him.

Bradshaw himself would have got more caps if he was around as much in Easter’s days (or now if we didn’t have Keiffer Moore to be fair)

[njdragon]

Nov 3, 2022 11:27:05 GMT insertname said:

Nov 3, 2022 11:23:05 GMT njdragon said:

Craig davies!

The only one i used to love dont know what happened to him though was freddy eastwood

That was a weird one, went from scoring an absolute belter on his debut Vs Bulgaria and I started to get carried away thinking he was the consistent goal scoring striker we lacked and then just suddenly seemed to go shit at club level and his career dropped off a cliff very quickly.

yes goal on his debut and i think ended up back at southend after wolves i think

[njdragon]

Nov 3, 2022 11:30:08 GMT iot said:

Nov 2, 2022 23:44:56 GMT mrpicton79 said:

Of course, he managed Real Madrid twice, how silly of me questioning his management credentials.

All I'm saying is you and all the other Tosh-lovers greatly exaggerate how brave he was "blooding younger players" when in reality his hand was forced, and yes most managers probably would have selected the same personnel under the circumstances.

And you know current/recently retired players generally aren't a good gauge. They're too professional to come out publicly talking about how clueless he was (bar maybe Robbie Savage).

But anyway as others have said, we're just going round in circles here, so I'll stop spouting my absolute rubbish for the time being.

'yes most managers probably would have selected the same personnel under the circumstances.'

I think you're completely wrong on that. See below an extract from the Together Stronger documentary yesterday, which clearly shows how it was a deliberate strategy from the beginning to bring the average age down - i think it unlikely that most managers would have sacrificed short-term progress in the same way. 

Flynn said: "I had a call from John. He said, 'I've got something for you, a proposal. Where are you?' I was in Port Talbot and he was in Verdi's cafe in Swansea. 'Can you meet me in half an hour?'



"And that's how it all started. We put this plan together because he said the squad was too old. The average age was well over 26-27. He wanted to bring that down to 22-23...

Toshack wanted to breed a new team, but that is often easier said than done when pressure mounts as one qualification campaign after another faded away.



Even the manager branded a 3-1 defeat in a European Championships qualifier in Cyprus in 2007 as "one of the worst" Wales performances he had ever seen.



Young players such as midfielder Aaron Ramsey were grateful for the opportunities, but it was the bonds forged under this adversity that would prove so strong years later.



"The system was in place to give us opportunities to play at the highest level," Ramsey said.



"They were tough times but we stuck at it. We stuck together, especially the players who had been coming through at that time. We knew that eventually it would pay off."'

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63497013

Ridiculous for you to describe me as a 'Toshack lover' when I've been very critical of several things he did, I just take issue with your absolutist view on it. 

HIs deliberate strategy was hardly deliberate when most of his senior plays retired because of him. They forced his hand.

[njdragon]

Nov 3, 2022 12:08:16 GMT derynglas said:

Football is a results business as they say.So heres one for the detractors,
Tosh has more wins for Wales (22) than any other manager,and only lost one more.

As we saw last night though (and already knew) the most significant issue was bringing
in Brian Flynn to oversee the whole youth set up,which seemed shambolic before.
We saw how he brought in Ash and Hal,not a given,and no doubt quite a few others.

As for retirements,one mentioned has been Mark Delaney,but i know for a fact he never retired fro
Wales as such,his last ever game was the 2-1 loss against Czech Republic in Sept 2006,
spent the rest of that season trying to sort his knee out finally giving up in August 2007.

Im old school and remember a quote from Leighton James who said you dont retire from Wales,
Wales retires you.If some of them did retire because of Tosh i blame the players who i think
should have stuck around to help the kids.

Weve got an identity and a way of playing,players want to play for us.And in a few weeks were
going to our third tournament in 6 years.Go figure. But for me its not just that we happened
to produce a crop of great players,weve had that in the past,but the way they were
managed and brought in and Tosh takes a lot of credit for where we are today IMO.

look at the win percentage not games won - he managed more games than others.

for context:

Games lost 23 the second highest since 1954 - i dont remember us playing an awful lot of top tier sides like we do now.

only Mike england managed more games than him

[mrpicton79]

Nov 3, 2022 12:08:16 GMT derynglas said:

Football is a results business as they say.So heres one for the detractors,
Tosh has more wins for Wales (22) than any other manager,and only lost one more.

As we saw last night though (and already knew) the most significant issue was bringing
in Brian Flynn to oversee the whole youth set up,which seemed shambolic before.
We saw how he brought in Ash and Hal,not a given,and no doubt quite a few others.

As for retirements,one mentioned has been Mark Delaney,but i know for a fact he never retired fro
Wales as such,his last ever game was the 2-1 loss against Czech Republic in Sept 2006,
spent the rest of that season trying to sort his knee out finally giving up in August 2007.

Im old school and remember a quote from Leighton James who said you dont retire from Wales,
Wales retires you.If some of them did retire because of Tosh i blame the players who i think
should have stuck around to help the kids.

Weve got an identity and a way of playing,players want to play for us.And in a few weeks were
going to our third tournament in 6 years.Go figure. But for me its not just that we happened
to produce a crop of great players,weve had that in the past,but the way they were
managed and brought in and Tosh takes a lot of credit for where we are today IMO.

Knew this would come up again. I saw the docu writers fell into that trap too. You've got to give stats like that context for them to have any real meaning.

Exactly half of Toshack's 22 wins were in meaningless friendlies. His record in competitive games was of course, pretty atrocious, and he left us as far away as we'd ever been from qualification.

Compare that with Coleman's 17 of 19 wins coming in competitive games, which yielded qualification, and another campaign where we were competitive. Pretty clear who was the more successful manager by a country mile. And the same thing applies to other managers in recent times.

It's just another example of how things get twisted to make it sound like we were really successful under Tosh.

[Deleted]

Are you all starting to get as bored typing away as i was just reading the thread? there's a world out yonder keyboard,run be free (apologies if your mums have locked you in the basement:)

[njdragon]

Nov 3, 2022 13:11:27 GMT @smithersjones said:

Are you all starting to get as bored typing away as i was just reading the thread? there's a world out yonder keyboard,run be free (apologies if your mums have locked you in the basement:)

F*ck it must be lonely up there on that pedestal

This is a public forum for debates about wales. Are you suggesting we all meet up face to face to have a chat about this?

If not im unsure about why you'd come on here to post that

[mrpicton79]

He's probably right. I keep meaning to leave it, then somebody else pipes up with more narrative-based bullshit praising Tosh and it reels me back in 

[njdragon]

yes its is dragging a bit out but surely there's better social media sites to troll

[marsvolta]

Yeah, he did score a couple more for us then went it Coventry and then back to Southend.

When we first picked him he was on fire for Southend but it was all short lived

[insertname]

Nov 3, 2022 12:35:45 GMT marsvolta said:

Nov 3, 2022 11:24:57 GMT insertname said:

He was never “that” good. Did Easter ever have a goal scoring run at championship level? I recall him mostly being a lower league striker apart from maybe 15 minutes of fame following his hot run in the FA cup with wycombe. I think he got called up for the same reasons as stated above: lack of options and throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck. To be fair to Tosh Bradshaw would probably have won a fair few caps back in those days because the cupboard was so bare up front that a player who goes on a scoring run once a season at championship level would have been a key player. That aside I agree with the general gist that Tosh’s promotion of youth is a bit over-stated and it wasn’t like he was surgical in who he brought in.

Yeah it was mostly in the lower divisions, he’d have a short run of girls then get a transfer for something like £100,000 and go quiet again for a while.
As I said, hewas never as good as Bradshaw, the similarity was the short burst of goals that would prompt calls for him to be included, followed by a dry patch where everyone would forget about him.

Bradshaw himself would have got more caps if he was around as much in Easter’s days (or now if we didn’t have Keiffer Moore to be fair)

Hmm…I’m not sure, I think if Bradshaw were our main option up front then the tactical approach would be changed so he wasn’t needed. I don’t think his stock was ever higher than around 2016 and I do think he was the victim of both a successful wales team and Coleman being too reliant on players he had been loyal to in the past and come the time when Coleman left and played those up and coming players in his last game sort of like a “handover” Bradshaw’s usual downfall of injury and form meant he was out of the picture. He had an outside chance when he went on that recent run but injury scuppered that so he’s back to square one. Basically the bloke can’t stay fit and can’t stay scoring so at this point relying on him in any way shape or form is pointless.

But yeah to bring it back round to Tosh he probably would have won a few caps under him. I’m sure there are a few players who looking back would have been good enough to win more caps if only they had been around at a time when we weren’t doing so well. Particularly 2016 and 1994 when it was a struggle trying to fit Rush, Saunders, Giggs and Hughes into the starting XI!

[iot]

Nov 3, 2022 12:42:09 GMT njdragon said:

Nov 3, 2022 11:30:08 GMT iot said:

HIs deliberate strategy was hardly deliberate when most of his senior plays retired because of him. They forced his hand.

No, the deliberate strategy of reducing the average age by 5 years, prioritising young, higher potential players above older but perhaps higher quality (at the time) alternatives. The strategy of capping as many players as possible, knowing that most won't be up to it (a point seemingly missed by a few of you) but that there would be a few diamonds in the rough that would be important squad players. The impact of which was twofold - getting more players through, but potentially moreso, ensuring players who would have played for Wales anyway came through together, amassed 50 caps or so while in their early 20s, struggled through adversity together which meant that a few years down the line, we had a battle-hardened team that had a great bond. Toshack certainly did contribute towards that

[iot]

Nov 3, 2022 13:25:17 GMT mrpicton79 said:

He's probably right. I keep meaning to leave it, then somebody else pipes up with more narrative-based bullshit praising Tosh and it reels me back in 

I'll agree with you that it's dragging, but it's not because people apply balance and point out that he had many faults, but equally did some things that benefitted us in the long term. It's you and a couple others looking at things in a completely black and white way

[insertname]

I think a few are just not having it that the plan was as well worked out as some make out. What I find telling is that the narrative has changed over the years to adapt to how things have turned out. It might be my recollection but if this was all part of some grand design I don’t recall this ever being declared as bluntly from day one as it has been in hindsight in documentaries.

[iot]

Well unless Brian Flynn is a liar, that was precisely the plan from their first meeting together when Toshack got the job and brought Flynn in. Flynn was instructed to find new players, however tenuous the Welsh heritage link, and both Flynn and Toshack said they had put a plan in place to bring the average age down by 5 years. Not sure what's difficult to believe about that. A few seem to be completely clouded in their judgement, refusing to believe what the coaches and players of the time are saying, because it doesn't fit with their narrative. Contrary to them, I'm not contradicting anything current and former players are saying about the time. I've said that the setup seemed to be very amateurish, a point Danny Gabbidon regularly makes, and we probably would never have qualified for anything under his watch because he hadn't moved along with the times. Equally, however, I think it's wrong to dismiss his impact in bringing players through at a younger age, and all at the same time, which is very important when it came to the amount of experience and togetherness the squad had going into the 16 qualifiers

[bale-droed]

Nov 3, 2022 12:08:16 GMT derynglas said:

Football is a results business as they say.So heres one for the detractors,
Tosh has more wins for Wales (22) than any other manager,and only lost one more.

As we saw last night though (and already knew) the most significant issue was bringing
in Brian Flynn to oversee the whole youth set up,which seemed shambolic before.
We saw how he brought in Ash and Hal,not a given,and no doubt quite a few others.

As for retirements,one mentioned has been Mark Delaney,but i know for a fact he never retired fro
Wales as such,his last ever game was the 2-1 loss against Czech Republic in Sept 2006,
spent the rest of that season trying to sort his knee out finally giving up in August 2007.

Im old school and remember a quote from Leighton James who said you dont retire from Wales,
Wales retires you.If some of them did retire because of Tosh i blame the players who i think
should have stuck around to help the kids.

Weve got an identity and a way of playing,players want to play for us.And in a few weeks were
going to our third tournament in 6 years.Go figure. But for me its not just that we happened
to produce a crop of great players,weve had that in the past,but the way they were
managed and brought in and Tosh takes a lot of credit for where we are today IMO.

He sadly can’t add the 2005 1-0 defeat to Cyprus or the 2-2 draw to New Zealand to his record but the time we scraped past Liechtenstein 1-0 in a competitive game he can. As I finish typing that I realised he also can’t add to his win record the following games = the 0-0 draw to Northern Ireland, 3-1 defeat to Cyprus, the 2-1 defeat to Georgia or the loss to Montenegro who were a new country at the time.


Someone give Toshack a statue. I mean we did beat San Marino 2-1, Estonia 1-0 and Trinidad 2-1

[conwy10]

But to be fair in recent years we've qualified for 3 major tournament but still lost to Albania, drew 0-0 to Estonia, scraped past Azerbijian. We nearly lost to Belarus...

I think regardless of what we do we'll always have those results come up every now and again. That 2016 team reached a European Semi Final but along the way had to dig deep to beat Andorra 2-1.

[conwy10]

Nov 3, 2022 8:39:06 GMT bale-droed said:

The 2 most annoying this about Wales are as follows:

1. The lack of desire for independence linked with the severe case of Stockholm syndrome that most suffer from.

2. Toshack would always get credit down the line when he deserves 0.


When Tosh finally left Wales who wanted him? Tractor Sazi , Macedonia and Casablanca. Is that proof of a previous job that was done well? He threw as much shit at the wall as he could as he had literally 0 eye for talent. Mark Bradley , Steve Evans , David Partridge etc etc etc there were more duds than wins. He picked anyone. Deserves 0 credit for picking Bale as he was already starting in the championship and clearly the best option in his position at the time. Wayne had the league 2 record for the longest time without conceding by the time he picked him. If Tosh was serious about youth he would’ve been in before that. I hope nobody ever forgets this fact = Ramsey didn’t play for Wales seniors until after he had signed for Arsenal. When he was at Arsenal Tosh called him up. What more proof is needed that he didn’t have an eye for talent?

Fair play the guys a genius. Hes managed Wales and Macedonia, laying the foundations for both to qualify for their first major tournaments in generations.

[welshrover]

Any chance we can just stick to some one liners,

These essays people keep writing are beyond my digest.

[mrpicton79]

Nov 3, 2022 23:20:30 GMT conwy10 said:

Nov 3, 2022 22:38:06 GMT bale-droed said:

He sadly can’t add the 2005 1-0 defeat to Cyprus or the 2-2 draw to New Zealand to his record but the time we scraped past Liechtenstein 1-0 in a competitive game he can. As I finish typing that I realised he also can’t add to his win record the following games = the 0-0 draw to Northern Ireland, 3-1 defeat to Cyprus, the 2-1 defeat to Georgia or the loss to Montenegro who were a new country at the time.


Someone give Toshack a statue. I mean we did beat San Marino 2-1, Estonia 1-0 and Trinidad 2-1

But to be fair in recent years we've qualified for 3 major tournament but still lost to Albania, drew 0-0 to Estonia, scraped past Azerbijian. We nearly lost to Belarus...

I think regardless of what we do we'll always have those results come up every now and again. That 2016 team reached a European Semi Final but along the way had to dig deep to beat Andorra 2-1.

Indeed we'll always have dodgy results against smaller nations because we're Wales. But if we look at the best results during the Coleman era they were awesome, some of the best in our history. The best result during the Toshack era, according to the documentary, was a 1-0 win against Azerbaijan in an already dead WC campaign.

There is absolutely no comparison between the two so we need to stop trying to put Toshack's record up in lights like he did really well, which is what a lot of people are trying to do. Only Gould and Smith have done worse in competitive games in my time.

[mrpicton79]

Nov 3, 2022 23:28:41 GMT conwy10 said:

Nov 3, 2022 8:39:06 GMT bale-droed said:

The 2 most annoying this about Wales are as follows:

1. The lack of desire for independence linked with the severe case of Stockholm syndrome that most suffer from.

2. Toshack would always get credit down the line when he deserves 0.


When Tosh finally left Wales who wanted him? Tractor Sazi , Macedonia and Casablanca. Is that proof of a previous job that was done well? He threw as much shit at the wall as he could as he had literally 0 eye for talent. Mark Bradley , Steve Evans , David Partridge etc etc etc there were more duds than wins. He picked anyone. Deserves 0 credit for picking Bale as he was already starting in the championship and clearly the best option in his position at the time. Wayne had the league 2 record for the longest time without conceding by the time he picked him. If Tosh was serious about youth he would’ve been in before that. I hope nobody ever forgets this fact = Ramsey didn’t play for Wales seniors until after he had signed for Arsenal. When he was at Arsenal Tosh called him up. What more proof is needed that he didn’t have an eye for talent?

Fair play the guys a genius. Hes managed Wales and Macedonia, laying the foundations for both to qualify for their first major tournaments in generations.

I wonder how many Tosh-fans they've got on the North Macedonian football forums. Not as many as on here, one suspects. There's probably just a one-page Toshack thread where they're all saying "christ that guy held us back so much, thank goodness we got rid of him when we did!". Similar to what our Tosh thread(s) should be....but oh no 

[bale-droed]

Toshack probably played Pandev in goals

[bale-droed]

Nov 3, 2022 23:28:41 GMT conwy10 said:

Nov 3, 2022 8:39:06 GMT bale-droed said:

The 2 most annoying this about Wales are as follows:

1. The lack of desire for independence linked with the severe case of Stockholm syndrome that most suffer from.

2. Toshack would always get credit down the line when he deserves 0.


When Tosh finally left Wales who wanted him? Tractor Sazi , Macedonia and Casablanca. Is that proof of a previous job that was done well? He threw as much shit at the wall as he could as he had literally 0 eye for talent. Mark Bradley , Steve Evans , David Partridge etc etc etc there were more duds than wins. He picked anyone. Deserves 0 credit for picking Bale as he was already starting in the championship and clearly the best option in his position at the time. Wayne had the league 2 record for the longest time without conceding by the time he picked him. If Tosh was serious about youth he would’ve been in before that. I hope nobody ever forgets this fact = Ramsey didn’t play for Wales seniors until after he had signed for Arsenal. When he was at Arsenal Tosh called him up. What more proof is needed that he didn’t have an eye for talent?

Fair play the guys a genius. Hes managed Wales and Macedonia, laying the foundations for both to qualify for their first major tournaments in generations.

Read this macedonianfootball.com/manager-john-toshack-relieved-of-his-duties/amp/

Macedonia certainly doesn’t think that. Shame on us for keeping him for over 5 years.

macedonianfootball.com/toshack-embarrassed-with-loss-to-luxembourg/amp/

And this

macedonianfootball.com/ilcho-naumoski-adds-more-critics-on-toshack/amp/ It’s like the John oster situation

[mrpicton79]

Nov 3, 2022 22:29:26 GMT iot said:

Nov 3, 2022 21:48:19 GMT insertname said:

I think a few are just not having it that the plan was as well worked out as some make out. What I find telling is that the narrative has changed over the years to adapt to how things have turned out. It might be my recollection but if this was all part of some grand design I don’t recall this ever being declared as bluntly from day one as it has been in hindsight in documentaries.

Well unless Brian Flynn is a liar, that was precisely the plan from their first meeting together when Toshack got the job and brought Flynn in. Flynn was instructed to find new players, however tenuous the Welsh heritage link, and both Flynn and Toshack said they had put a plan in place to bring the average age down by 5 years. Not sure what's difficult to believe about that. A few seem to be completely clouded in their judgement, refusing to believe what the coaches and players of the time are saying, because it doesn't fit with their narrative. Contrary to them, I'm not contradicting anything current and former players are saying about the time. I've said that the setup seemed to be very amateurish, a point Danny Gabbidon regularly makes, and we probably would never have qualified for anything under his watch because he hadn't moved along with the times. Equally, however, I think it's wrong to dismiss his impact in bringing players through at a younger age, and all at the same time, which is very important when it came to the amount of experience and togetherness the squad had going into the 16 qualifiers

This is the bullshit that you are buying for some reason. The plan was "we need players, Brian find me some players!". There was no rocket science involved. As one generation of players are phased out then naturally you look to the new generation, who will be....you guessed it, younger. Obviously the average is going to drop significantly whenever that happens.

And even that narrative isn't completely accurate. If he was that enthused about blooding younger players he wouldn't have persisted with Koumas for so long ahead of more promising options in midfield.

You are setting the bar pretty low if you think he deserves some absurd amount of praise for that.

[iot]

Nov 4, 2022 5:09:54 GMT mrpicton79 said:

Nov 3, 2022 22:29:26 GMT iot said:

Well unless Brian Flynn is a liar, that was precisely the plan from their first meeting together when Toshack got the job and brought Flynn in. Flynn was instructed to find new players, however tenuous the Welsh heritage link, and both Flynn and Toshack said they had put a plan in place to bring the average age down by 5 years. Not sure what's difficult to believe about that. A few seem to be completely clouded in their judgement, refusing to believe what the coaches and players of the time are saying, because it doesn't fit with their narrative. Contrary to them, I'm not contradicting anything current and former players are saying about the time. I've said that the setup seemed to be very amateurish, a point Danny Gabbidon regularly makes, and we probably would never have qualified for anything under his watch because he hadn't moved along with the times. Equally, however, I think it's wrong to dismiss his impact in bringing players through at a younger age, and all at the same time, which is very important when it came to the amount of experience and togetherness the squad had going into the 16 qualifiers

This is the bullshit that you are buying for some reason. The plan was "we need players, Brian find me some players!". There was no rocket science involved. As one generation of players are phased out then naturally you look to the new generation, who will be....you guessed it, younger. Obviously the average is going to drop significantly whenever that happens.

And even that narrative isn't completely accurate. If he was that enthused about blooding younger players he wouldn't have persisted with Koumas for so long ahead of more promising options in midfield.

You are setting the bar pretty low if you think he deserves some absurd amount of praise for that.

His hand was partly forced, but it is also true to say he could have selected older, more proven players at the time, but chose not to. I see myself sitting between the two extreme positions of 'Toshack was a genius and principally responsible for our subsequent success', and 'he set Welsh football back and deserves zero credit for bringing through the generation of players as early as he did'. You're very much in the latter and just digging in, so we're not getting anywhere. So for the sanity of the poor bastards reading this thread, I will leave it there. 

[bale-droed]

Nov 4, 2022 8:22:17 GMT iot said:

Nov 4, 2022 5:09:54 GMT mrpicton79 said:

This is the bullshit that you are buying for some reason. The plan was "we need players, Brian find me some players!". There was no rocket science involved. As one generation of players are phased out then naturally you look to the new generation, who will be....you guessed it, younger. Obviously the average is going to drop significantly whenever that happens.

And even that narrative isn't completely accurate. If he was that enthused about blooding younger players he wouldn't have persisted with Koumas for so long ahead of more promising options in midfield.

You are setting the bar pretty low if you think he deserves some absurd amount of praise for that.

His hand was partly forced, but it is also true to say he could have selected older, more proven players at the time, but chose not to. I see myself sitting between the two extreme positions of 'Toshack was a genius and principally responsible for our subsequent success', and 'he set Welsh football back and deserves zero credit for bringing through the generation of players as early as he did'. You're very much in the latter and just digging in, so we're not getting anywhere. So for the sanity of the poor bastards reading this thread, I will leave it there. 

I don’t mean this comment in a passive aggressive or sarcastic way. But can you please give us just one example of a player who was a better option than

15 million pound Bale at 17, Arsenals 18 year old Ramsey, Tottenham’s Chris Gunter, league 2 clean sheet record holder Wayne and future star who was starting at a championship club in Jack Collison? Give us one player who was a better option in those positions that Tosh didn’t pick to “blood” youngsters. Just one and not including the players he fell out with

[iot]

Nov 4, 2022 8:31:06 GMT bale-droed said:

Nov 4, 2022 8:22:17 GMT iot said:

His hand was partly forced, but it is also true to say he could have selected older, more proven players at the time, but chose not to. I see myself sitting between the two extreme positions of 'Toshack was a genius and principally responsible for our subsequent success', and 'he set Welsh football back and deserves zero credit for bringing through the generation of players as early as he did'. You're very much in the latter and just digging in, so we're not getting anywhere. So for the sanity of the poor bastards reading this thread, I will leave it there. 

I don’t mean this comment in a passive aggressive or sarcastic way. But can you please give us just one example of a player who was a better option than

15 million pound Bale at 17, Arsenals 18 year old Ramsey, Tottenham’s Chris Gunter, league 2 clean sheet record holder Wayne and future star who was starting at a championship club in Jack Collison? Give us one player who was a better option in those positions that Tosh didn’t pick to “blood” youngsters. Just one and not including the players he fell out with

No, because I've already responded to that exact question up-thread and don't want to drag the conversation out. Yes Hennessey had kept 7-8 consecutive clean sheets, but that was in League 2 and his only senior minutes at the time I believe, whilst we had players with hundreds of appearances playing at a higher level on the bench / not in the squad. That's the example I gave above, and I'm definitely not going to spend more time looking into who was selected, in place of who, and where they were at with their clubs 15 years ago.