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Giggs
Oct 15, 2019 12:04:14 GMT
Post by 1gwaunview on Oct 15, 2019 12:04:14 GMT
Giggs should have kept quiet re: Dan James' head injury. What a plonker!
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Post by dai on Oct 15, 2019 12:18:13 GMT
According to Ben Davies Wales are a 'proper team' again: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50047652Bit of a telling quote that if you ask me, as said above, perhaps some of the older heads weren't 'feeling it' either. However Sunday may well have been the watershed moment they all needed to finally bind the kids and the experienced heads together. Maybe that essential element of trust is starting to grow now amongst them, what odds we'll now start to see a more rapid improvement as a cohesive unit? I certainly hope so! Good points, and probably what I've been thinking this whole time. I think the bolded bit is probably the main thing. Looking back, it's crazy how we've gone from a fixed starting 11 under Coleman to chopping and changing under Giggs - it was bound to have some sort of negative effect. There was also a serious strong bond between players under Coleman, and that had been broken - hopefully only temporarily judging by the past two games. I still think we've gone too rookie heavy, but maybe that's been out of our control - Chester injured long term, Williams losing the plot a bit and becoming club-less, Gunter not playing, King injured, Ledley gone, Edwards retired. That's almost half a team that were near starters only a few years ago. Obviously some are still part of the squad, and some to come back in.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 8:44:03 GMT
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Post by sleepy on Nov 17, 2019 8:44:03 GMT
We may fall short on tuesday, but I think giggs deserves huge credit for the performances over the past 3 games.
If things are going well on Tuesday, I'd love the crowd to give him some personal recognition, e.g. singing "Giggs, Giggs will tear you apart, again."
We'll definitely need to hang on to him of we qualify. His stock will rise and clubs may come looking, so let's let him know he's our gaffer and we want him to stay.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 8:51:20 GMT
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Post by cadno on Nov 17, 2019 8:51:20 GMT
We may fall short on tuesday, but I think giggs deserves huge credit for the performances over the past 3 games. If things are going well on Tuesday, I'd love the crowd to give him some personal recognition, e.g. singing "Giggs, Giggs will tear you apart, again." We'll definitely need to hang on to him of we qualify. His stock will rise and clubs may come looking, so let's let him know he's our gaffer and we want him to stay. Those Lyrics sing true for Ashley Williams.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 8:51:22 GMT
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Post by welshiron on Nov 17, 2019 8:51:22 GMT
If we fall short on tuesday he should be sacked
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 8:53:54 GMT
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Post by cadno on Nov 17, 2019 8:53:54 GMT
If we fall short on tuesday he should be sacked Lets be honest, it's never been easier to qualify. We've beaten Slovakia at home and Azerbaijan twice, and now we're one win away from qualifying. I agree the last 3 performances have been a lot better, so credit where it's due. It's all on Tuesday though.
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Post by yanto on Nov 17, 2019 9:08:34 GMT
Well done Giggs, getting the best out of the players we have. Prior to 2016 we would have been quite happy so shut the fuck up and get behind him. I do think the euros qualification are in danger of being too diluted mind and this will be reflected once we get back to the WC campaign. But he is building a good team and bringing through a new batch of players.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 9:08:53 GMT
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Post by dai on Nov 17, 2019 9:08:53 GMT
If we fall short on tuesday he should be sacked Should Coleman have been sacked after the Ireland loss?
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 9:34:07 GMT
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Post by marsvolta on Nov 17, 2019 9:34:07 GMT
If we fall short on tuesday he should be sacked Lets be honest, it's never been easier to qualify. We've beaten Slovakia at home and Azerbaijan twice, and now we're one win away from qualifying. I agree the last 3 performances have been a lot better, so credit where it's due. It's all on Tuesday though. Quite a negative spin on it The top two go through based on a league basis. Remember that we are in a group of 5 rather than 6 so margins for error are smaller if we win on Tuesday we’d have beaten everyone except the top seed at home, drew with our biggest threat to qualifying away from home and drew with the top seed at home. Add the slightly easier home and away victories against the bottom seeds (which are in every group yet most bottom seeds pick up points here and there) The only blip was the away defeat in Hungary which, if we qualify. we would have put right on Tuesday. Those set of results would put us second in most qualifying groups and the top two qualify. Anyone who thinks that qualifying from a group as tight as this has ‘never been easier’ just hasn’t been paying attention.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 9:42:10 GMT
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Post by insertname on Nov 17, 2019 9:42:10 GMT
Well done Giggs, getting the best out of the players we have. Prior to 2016 we would have been quite happy so shut the fuck up and get behind him. I do think the euros qualification are in danger of being too diluted mind and this will be reflected once we get back to the WC campaign. But he is building a good team and bringing through a new batch of players. Pretty much half of uefa qualify. Let that sink in for a moment. I’m sure even the most pessimistic Welsh fan would not have thought we weren’t in the top half of uefa at the start of the qualifiers so in that sense Giggs will not have achieved anything spectacular.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 9:47:50 GMT
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Post by ger93 on Nov 17, 2019 9:47:50 GMT
Well done Giggs, getting the best out of the players we have. Prior to 2016 we would have been quite happy so shut the fuck up and get behind him. I do think the euros qualification are in danger of being too diluted mind and this will be reflected once we get back to the WC campaign. But he is building a good team and bringing through a new batch of players. Pretty much half of uefa qualify. Let that sink in for a moment. I’m sure even the most pessimistic Welsh fan would not have thought we weren’t in the top half of uefa at the start of the qualifiers so in that sense Giggs will not have achieved anything spectacular. Stating half of Uefa qualify is misleading as it all depends on who’s in your group. We got shafted by drawing Hungary as 4th seeds, who are now probably top 50ish in the world. Look at Northern Ireland as well who have Germany and Netherlands in their group. My point being that looking at total teams qualified against world ranking or personal opinion on where you think Wales lie is misleading. I think we were drawn a tricky group
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Post by hooky on Nov 17, 2019 9:51:20 GMT
Lets be honest
Whatever you think of him Giggs has been absolutely BRAVE and RUTHLESS
All these kids he has thrown in (and I have been thinking before he has thrown in too many too soon) was akin to forward planning 2 to 4 years down the road and he must have been aware that he was risking qualification for this tournament though this approach. Sure he needed to threshen things up but he ripped things up and started again!
If he suceeds on Tuesday while doing this then he deserves massive credit. To get the results while incorporating a load of youngsters, new players in a new philosophy. Whatever you think he has been far less rigid / predictable than Coleman. Who would have thought he would even revert to a 7ft, oldish (he is 27) target man with limited skills / poor goal record to get us over the line, which has so far proven successful!
Does it not send a chill down your spine that if Colemand were still there then we may still be seeing the likes of Gunter playing?
Would also note that he has been hurt a lot by the unavailability of Ramsey (especially) and Bale. Also with Bale, when he has had him, he has been low on fitness, quality and confidence for the most part. The youngsters have filled the void and who is the one that has backed them and given belief!
The only selection I don't get is Giggs not picking Williams for the last game (only). Does anyone know if there is a reason? Throwing youngsters in ahead of him and one - Lockyer - who is not so young = but one that I personally do not rate - has surprised me. I always think he has a mistake in him and he has made clear errors in both games he has played in.
I can't believe Williams has made things awkward for him as he always comes across as humble but driven. Maybe its based on some scientific analysis or something!
Finally, it is MUCH more exciting to watch Wales. My only concern is sometimes we are naturally very open - strangely this seems to be the case right from the middle in the middle half of the field (which is surprising) and on our right (teams are deliberately overloading on that side - even Azerbajan did it!). Maybe this is the sacrifice we need to make to more attacking. Our attacking options are now pretty awesome so I guess it makes sense to do so but it is a concern.
COME ON WALES! If Giggs delivers on Tuesday then we should all shut up and focus on the football and not his moral code or his playing days (in which he still made a massively positive contribution by the way!). Judge him as a manager and that ultimately comes down to getting results and changing things with the future in mind
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Post by cadno on Nov 17, 2019 9:53:18 GMT
Lets be honest, it's never been easier to qualify. We've beaten Slovakia at home and Azerbaijan twice, and now we're one win away from qualifying. I agree the last 3 performances have been a lot better, so credit where it's due. It's all on Tuesday though. Quite a negative spin on it The top two go through based on a league basis. Remember that we are in a group of 5 rather than 6 so margins for error are smaller if we win on Tuesday we’d have beaten everyone except the top seed at home, drew with our biggest threat to qualifying away from home and drew with the top seed at home. Add the slightly easier home and away victories against the bottom seeds (which are in every group yet most bottom seeds pick up points here and there) The only blip was the away defeat in Hungary which, if we qualify. we would have put right on Tuesday. Those set of results would put us second in most qualifying groups and the top two qualify. Anyone who thinks that qualifying from a group as tight as this has ‘never been easier’ just hasn’t been paying attention. I see what you mean, but the point remains, it's never been easier to qualify. But we've still got to be a decent side to qualify obviously, and we have got good quality players, and a system that works now with Moore up top. I'd like to see us full strength against a top side, we haven't been able to beat a world class team under Giggs yet. But we're improving, and starting to look like a proper team again, so hopefully we win Tuesday and do well in the tournament next year.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 9:56:26 GMT
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Post by cadno on Nov 17, 2019 9:56:26 GMT
Too be fair I agree with most of that post hooky
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 10:15:15 GMT
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Post by conwy10 on Nov 17, 2019 10:15:15 GMT
Lets be honest, it's never been easier to qualify. We've beaten Slovakia at home and Azerbaijan twice, and now we're one win away from qualifying. I agree the last 3 performances have been a lot better, so credit where it's due. It's all on Tuesday though. Quite a negative spin on it The top two go through based on a league basis. Remember that we are in a group of 5 rather than 6 so margins for error are smaller if we win on Tuesday we’d have beaten everyone except the top seed at home, drew with our biggest threat to qualifying away from home and drew with the top seed at home. Add the slightly easier home and away victories against the bottom seeds (which are in every group yet most bottom seeds pick up points here and there) The only blip was the away defeat in Hungary which, if we qualify. we would have put right on Tuesday. Those set of results would put us second in most qualifying groups and the top two qualify. Anyone who thinks that qualifying from a group as tight as this has ‘never been easier’ just hasn’t been paying attention. Is it a smaller margin for error? Who were the bottom seeds? Andorra, San Marino, Gibraltar? Only threat would have been Kosovo.
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Post by insertname on Nov 17, 2019 10:27:12 GMT
Pretty much half of uefa qualify. Let that sink in for a moment. I’m sure even the most pessimistic Welsh fan would not have thought we weren’t in the top half of uefa at the start of the qualifiers so in that sense Giggs will not have achieved anything spectacular. Stating half of Uefa qualify is misleading as it all depends on who’s in your group. We got shafted by drawing Hungary as 4th seeds, who are now probably top 50ish in the world. Look at Northern Ireland as well who have Germany and Netherlands in their group. My point being that looking at total teams qualified against world ranking or personal opinion on where you think Wales lie is misleading. I think we were drawn a tricky group NI can count themselves unlucky, we could count ourselves unlucky for the World Cup draw as being top seeds we didn’t see any real benefit at all there. This group however was very winnable and we have proved that by taking 4 points off Slovakia and one off the top seed. We would be pretty comfortable going into the final game too if we hadn’t contrived to lose to a last minute Hungary goal and we would all be wondering where the challenge was in this group.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 10:35:16 GMT
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Post by marsvolta on Nov 17, 2019 10:35:16 GMT
Quite a negative spin on it The top two go through based on a league basis. Remember that we are in a group of 5 rather than 6 so margins for error are smaller if we win on Tuesday we’d have beaten everyone except the top seed at home, drew with our biggest threat to qualifying away from home and drew with the top seed at home. Add the slightly easier home and away victories against the bottom seeds (which are in every group yet most bottom seeds pick up points here and there) The only blip was the away defeat in Hungary which, if we qualify. we would have put right on Tuesday. Those set of results would put us second in most qualifying groups and the top two qualify. Anyone who thinks that qualifying from a group as tight as this has ‘never been easier’ just hasn’t been paying attention. Is it a smaller margin for error? Who were the bottom seeds? Andorra, San Marino, Gibraltar? Only threat would have been Kosovo. Bottom seeds Moldova, Kosovo, Lithuania, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Malta, Moldova and Liechtenstein all took points off the others in their groups.
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Post by hooky on Nov 17, 2019 10:43:39 GMT
I would also add to my earlier post that the results have been achieved when many players has not been getting game time with their clubs (unlike the situation under Coleman):
Hennesey - #2 at CP. Just 1 cup appearance? Roberts - lost his place at Swansea in the last 2 weeks Mepham - has played 1 game perhaps in the last 2 months? Davies - clearly #2 to Rose this season, albeit has thankfully started to be rotated with Rose in last couple of weeks Ampadu - has had about 1 or 2 short substitute appearances for Leipzig Bale - first game since last game for Wales Ramsey - one appearance for Juve - since got back from latest injury has had one short sub appearance?
then
Brooks - injured Rodon - injured just as he had hit and maintained top form Chester - long term injury
then
Taylor / Lawrence - both pull out
Then of the others:
Mantando - just 1 or 2 starts at Schalke Smith - has he even played a single game for QPR Gunter - he is not even in the Reading squad nowadays? Back up goalkeepers like Ward like keeping their club benches warm Ledley - still AWOL!
Its been a bit like this for most of the campaign right? Can you imagine if most of these had regular game time? England have a lot of their youngsters playing regularly with their clubs and look at their stunning series of 7-0 type victories. Now their youngsters may be better on average but you have the likes of Mount being given regular game time at Chelsea but Ampadu having an unsuccessful loan at Leipzig, despite Lampard apparently being a big fan.
When you take everything into account then yes - it may only be Slovakia and Hungary representing our competitions for the #2 place in our group - but these are not pushovers and are challenging to put away when you consider the blooding of youngsters and change in style of play (remember the results under Toshack despite the emergence of Bale, Ramsey and many other youngsters), as well as the lack of game time many of our squad has had. You may remember both got to the last tougher to qualifier for European Championships and gave decent accounts of themselves
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 11:03:00 GMT
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Post by marsvolta on Nov 17, 2019 11:03:00 GMT
This thread is typical of us on Apostle.
We haven’t even qualified yet but now we’ve put ourselves in a position to qualify for only the second time ever, we spend the morning after trying to undermine the achievement.
Luckily if we win on Tuesday I’ll be surrounded by thousands going crazy in the Canton end and that will be my lasting memory from the campaign (I’ll stay off here for a few days after though so my bubble doesn’t burst, haha)
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 11:10:50 GMT
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Post by insertname on Nov 17, 2019 11:10:50 GMT
This thread is typical of us on Apostle. We haven’t even qualified yet but now we’ve put ourselves in a position to qualify for only the second time ever, we spend the morning after trying to undermine the achievement. Luckily if we win on Tuesday I’ll be surrounded by thousands going crazy in the Canton end and that will be my lasting memory from the campaign (I’ll stay off here for a few days after though so my bubble doesn’t burst, haha) I see what you’re saying about wanting it to feel like an achievement but look at it this way: If someone said to you prior to our qualification for 2016 that there would come a day when we would only have to overcome Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan to qualify *automatically*, and what.’s more, we would be going into the crucial final game with Bale, Ramsey and Allen available would your reaction really have been “Oh man, that’s so tough, how will we ever do it?!” Given the players we have, we’ve got no excuse for not qualifying from this group, really.
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Post by gwernybwch on Nov 17, 2019 11:22:01 GMT
Lets be honest Whatever you think of him Giggs has been absolutely BRAVE and RUTHLESS All these kids he has thrown in (and I have been thinking before he has thrown in too many too soon) was akin to forward planning 2 to 4 years down the road and he must have been aware that he was risking qualification for this tournament though this approach. Sure he needed to threshen things up but he ripped things up and started again! If he suceeds on Tuesday while doing this then he deserves massive credit. To get the results while incorporating a load of youngsters, new players in a new philosophy. Whatever you think he has been far less rigid / predictable than Coleman. Who would have thought he would even revert to a 7ft, oldish (he is 27) target man with limited skills / poor goal record to get us over the line, which has so far proven successful! Does it not send a chill down your spine that if Colemand were still there then we may still be seeing the likes of Gunter playing? Would also note that he has been hurt a lot by the unavailability of Ramsey (especially) and Bale. Also with Bale, when he has had him, he has been low on fitness, quality and confidence for the most part. The youngsters have filled the void and who is the one that has backed them and given belief! The only selection I don't get is Giggs not picking Williams for the last game (only). Does anyone know if there is a reason? Throwing youngsters in ahead of him and one - Lockyer - who is not so young = but one that I personally do not rate - has surprised me. I always think he has a mistake in him and he has made clear errors in both games he has played in. I can't believe Williams has made things awkward for him as he always comes across as humble but driven. Maybe its based on some scientific analysis or something! Finally, it is MUCH more exciting to watch Wales. My only concern is sometimes we are naturally very open - strangely this seems to be the case right from the middle in the middle half of the field (which is surprising) and on our right (teams are deliberately overloading on that side - even Azerbajan did it!). Maybe this is the sacrifice we need to make to more attacking. Our attacking options are now pretty awesome so I guess it makes sense to do so but it is a concern. COME ON WALES! If Giggs delivers on Tuesday then we should all shut up and focus on the football and not his moral code or his playing days (in which he still made a massively positive contribution by the way!). Judge him as a manager and that ultimately comes down to getting results and changing things with the future in mind Great post there hookyAnd I agree with much of it and some of this is going to feel like splitting hairs - He has been brave and ruthless, but throwing youngsters in too soon has been his choice. There have been a few occasions where his need to be 'his own man' have left us short of cover. He has been SO lucky to receive the benefits of all the hard work of Tosh / Flynn / Osian. He did rip things up and start again. Although he ripped things up without an obvious plan and with more time to fiddle about than any Welsh manager has ever experienced has finally found a new system. He has set his system up in such a way that the only way it would succeed is if we have a mobile centre-forward. I will ALWAYS judge him on his off-field activities. There is SO much more that he could give to Welsh football if he wanted to. For him it is ManU.Salford.Wales.In that order. PS: Not playing A. Williams last night made perfect sense to me. Azeri aren't any great shakes going forward and a rusty Mepham and Lockyer should have easily dealt with them. The Hungarian centre-forward is an absolute unit and a rested Ashley should be left to deal with him.
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Post by marsvolta on Nov 17, 2019 11:28:59 GMT
This thread is typical of us on Apostle. We haven’t even qualified yet but now we’ve put ourselves in a position to qualify for only the second time ever, we spend the morning after trying to undermine the achievement. Luckily if we win on Tuesday I’ll be surrounded by thousands going crazy in the Canton end and that will be my lasting memory from the campaign (I’ll stay off here for a few days after though so my bubble doesn’t burst, haha) I see what you’re saying about wanting it to feel like an achievement but look at it this way: If someone said to you prior to our qualification for 2016 that there would come a day when we would only have to overcome Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan to qualify *automatically*, and what.’s more, we would be going into the crucial final game with Bale, Ramsey and Allen available would your reaction really have been “Oh man, that’s so tough, how will we ever do it?!” Given the players we have, we’ve got no excuse for not qualifying from this group, really. Mate, I’ve been watching Wales since 1983 and I promise you that before 2016 I wouldn’t have taken anything for granted. Haha. On a serious note, to answer your question, it’s important to realise that IF (and I don’t think it is an easy group), If we had an easy group it is because we have put ourselves in this position by moving up the seedlings over the years. All the things that have put us in a position to be high seeds, to have an easier group, to be within one win of qualifying, even to be in a high Nations league group to guarantee the security of a playoff is all down to hard work and great results. We’ve earned the right to put ourselves in this position. The big teams have benefited for years from high seedings and I certainly don’t want to go back to the dark days of tough groups where we struggled to get above second from bottom, even if that would satisfy the ones on here who would feel it would be more of an achievement if we somehow qualified from a tough group. Win or lose on Tuesday,the climb up from bottom seeds in 2011 to where we are now is the achievement, we didn’t get to this position by luck of the draw or winning a raffle.
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Post by 1gwaunview on Nov 17, 2019 11:37:55 GMT
I personally can't stand Giggs for reasons that have been pointed out here so many times, and was saddened when he was appointed. Up until the Croatia game at home (Nations League Rep Ireland home performance accepted - don't acknowledge China trip as being relevant) thought he was clueless. Somehow, and I'm not sure how (partly Kieffer Moore's arrival perhaps) we are in a fantastic position of needing a win on Tuesday to qualify for the finals automatically. It's been a massive turnaround in a short time and we look a completely transformed side from the beginning of this campaign. IF.. we do manage to qualify then he certainly deserves major credit for the second half of this qualifying campaign. Failure to qualify now though, either automatically or through the backdoor then his future as Wales manager should be discussed (and I'm sure it will be) .
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 11:45:37 GMT
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Post by insertname on Nov 17, 2019 11:45:37 GMT
I see what you’re saying about wanting it to feel like an achievement but look at it this way: If someone said to you prior to our qualification for 2016 that there would come a day when we would only have to overcome Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan to qualify *automatically*, and what.’s more, we would be going into the crucial final game with Bale, Ramsey and Allen available would your reaction really have been “Oh man, that’s so tough, how will we ever do it?!” Given the players we have, we’ve got no excuse for not qualifying from this group, really. Mate, I’ve been watching Wales since 1983 and I promise you that before 2016 I wouldn’t have taken anything for granted. Haha. On a serious note, to answer your question, it’s important to realise that IF (and I don’t think it is an easy group), If we had an easy group it is because we have put ourselves in this position by moving up the seedlings over the years. All the things that have put us in a position to be high seeds, to have an easier group, to be within one win of qualifying, even to be in a high Nations league group to guarantee the security of a playoff is all down to hard work and great results. We’ve earned the right to put ourselves in this position. The big teams have benefited for years from high seedings and I certainly don’t want to go back to the dark days of tough groups where we struggled to get above second from bottom, even if that would satisfy the ones on here who would feel it would be more of an achievement if we somehow qualified from a tough group. Win or lose on Tuesday,the climb up from bottom seeds in 2011 to where we are now is the achievement, we didn’t get to this position by luck of the draw or winning a raffle. Fair points there and I agree with the sentiment about how we have created our own fortune by improving. But isn’t that more of a case for arguing that qualifying this time round is not as much of an achievement because we have made life easier by getting better draws? Either way, as I’ve made quite clear in the past for me qualifying for the Euros has never been the same since the expansion of the format and now by having a minnow seed qualify they are undermining the achievement of those in the harder nations league groups/qualifying group. The World Cup draw is, for me, the yardstick of how good we really are and even in our prime under a Coleman we came up short. I should also correct my terrible maths- I had it in mind the Euros was 32 teams when of course it’s 24, so half of Uefa don’t qualify, about a third do, so after correcting myself Giggs gets some extra credit but given the format and the group we are in and the players we have I am not changing my opinion that to not qualify from this group would really make this campaign a failure.
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Post by insertname on Nov 17, 2019 11:48:33 GMT
One thing Giggs does have the chance to do to make himself unique in the pantheon of Welsh managers is to win a must win qualifier at home to advance.
Romania, arguably Finland at home under Hughes, Russia at home, ROI at home.
We have never done it when it mattered. Can Giggs buck that trend?
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 12:12:32 GMT
Post by derynglas on Nov 17, 2019 12:12:32 GMT
Also Yugoslavia-1976,Iceland 1981,Yugoslavia-1983,Scotland-1985. 1976 was a bit different off course being a quarter final. The only time weve done it i suppose was beating Austria at Wrexham 1975 to get us to the QF,although not the actual tournament.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 12:22:15 GMT
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Post by cadno on Nov 17, 2019 12:22:15 GMT
I personally can't stand Giggs for reasons that have been pointed out here so many times, and was saddened when he was appointed. Up until the Croatia game at home (Nations League Rep Ireland home performance accepted - don't acknowledge China trip as being relevant) thought he was clueless. Somehow, and I'm not sure how (partly Kieffer Moore's arrival perhaps) we are in a fantastic position of needing a win on Tuesday to qualify for the finals automatically. It's been a massive turnaround in a short time and we look a completely transformed side from the beginning of this campaign. IF.. we do manage to qualify then he certainly deserves major credit for the second half of this qualifying campaign. Failure to qualify now though, either automatically or through the backdoor then his future as Wales manager should be discussed (and I'm sure it will be) . This is how I see it too!
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 12:40:48 GMT
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Post by marsvolta on Nov 17, 2019 12:40:48 GMT
Mate, I’ve been watching Wales since 1983 and I promise you that before 2016 I wouldn’t have taken anything for granted. Haha. On a serious note, to answer your question, it’s important to realise that IF (and I don’t think it is an easy group), If we had an easy group it is because we have put ourselves in this position by moving up the seedlings over the years. All the things that have put us in a position to be high seeds, to have an easier group, to be within one win of qualifying, even to be in a high Nations league group to guarantee the security of a playoff is all down to hard work and great results. We’ve earned the right to put ourselves in this position. The big teams have benefited for years from high seedings and I certainly don’t want to go back to the dark days of tough groups where we struggled to get above second from bottom, even if that would satisfy the ones on here who would feel it would be more of an achievement if we somehow qualified from a tough group. Win or lose on Tuesday,the climb up from bottom seeds in 2011 to where we are now is the achievement, we didn’t get to this position by luck of the draw or winning a raffle. Fair points there and I agree with the sentiment about how we have created our own fortune by improving. But isn’t that more of a case for arguing that qualifying this time round is not as much of an achievement because we have made life easier by getting better draws? Either way, as I’ve made quite clear in the past for me qualifying for the Euros has never been the same since the expansion of the format and now by having a minnow seed qualify they are undermining the achievement of those in the harder nations league groups/qualifying group. The World Cup draw is, for me, the yardstick of how good we really are and even in our prime under a Coleman we came up short. I should also correct my terrible maths- I had it in mind the Euros was 32 teams when of course it’s 24, so half of Uefa don’t qualify, about a third do, so after correcting myself Giggs gets some extra credit but given the format and the group we are in and the players we have I am not changing my opinion that to not qualify from this group would really make this campaign a failure. To be clear, I wasn’t saying that not qualifying wouldn’t be a failure, I was replying to those on here that were saying that qualifying wouldn’t be an achievement. We could go back and forth all day but the bottom line is that there are positive and negative ways of looking at everything and come Tuesday I’ll be only concentrating on the positive
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 13:11:12 GMT
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Post by Baxter Cymru on Nov 17, 2019 13:11:12 GMT
Giggs..... In.
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Giggs
Nov 17, 2019 13:32:32 GMT
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Post by cadno on Nov 17, 2019 13:32:32 GMT
The proof will be in the pudding when we play top opposition next
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