Wales v Ireland - 6 Sept 2018

Nations League kicks off for us in Cardiff in three months.

 

Ryan Giggs’ first competitive game for Wales and could be a very different story to last time.  They'll be looking for revenge after we knocked them out of World Cup qualification in Cardiff last time out. Wales likely to have Bale back and might even be able to keep Joe Allen on the pitch this time. 

 

Aside from Declan Rice and arguably Scott Hogan and Sean Maguire, we’ve not really moved on hugely.  And no Wes 

 

Hopefully Ashley Williams might be back from his current medical issues to gift us a few opportunities... 

I actually think we will put up a half decent defensive performance but start of with a defeat. Think we all know that the players don't have 100% faith in Martin or Roy and are more than aware of the tone in the media and the (lack of) tactics situation and the flirtation with a few Premier League jobs. I do believe we have some exciting young(ish) players in Rice, Maguire, Browne, Lenihan,Hogan, Doherty, Horgan and maybe Burke. Really think he needs to cast the met wider to get in the likes of Bamford and get Liam Kelly back in the set up. Hope the nations thing is not a total wreck but I feel it will be. I wouldn't mind a few bad results if it was a true re-building period but we all know it won't be. No creative player and Walters, McClean and maybe Whelan used way too much. 

Well, if we invite the likes of Cullen, Nolan and Johansson to train with the squad, is there not a risk of that putting them off? Surely we should just call them up 48 hours before the match, make no subs, then bring them on in the 85th minute, just to tie them down, before they realise what they've signed up to.

Luis Amor Rodriguez wrote: This match is coming around the bend now.  Would like to see us take a leaf from Wales' book and pick a few younger, highly promising players in a developmental capacity in the squad.   For example, as I've said elsewhere, would love to see the young fella Ryan Johansen fast-tracked and invited to train - he's just done pre-season with the Bayern first team and played senior matches against the likes of Man City and Juventus.  Cullen from West Ham would be another good shout.  In addition to their headliners (Bale, Ramsey, Allen etc), Wales have some seriously exciting, very young, talent coming through in Ampadu, Woodburn, Brooks and Wilson.  All of whom have been kept involved in their senior squad from a young age.   These were all dual/tri nationality players, but now strongly committed to Wales and looks likely to help them some level of competitiveness for the future.  It's an old row on here, but it's frustrating that we didn't do the same with our very promising dual-eligibility players such as Grealish, Michael Keane and the above mentioned Ampadu (who has serious promise) - get them involved at a senior level early and keep them involved.   Ironically, Ampadu may be competitively capped and tied-down to Wales in the match against Ireland (Da from Dublin, played for Belvo and Ireland up to U21).  Meanwhile we spent the Summer friendlies capping thirty-something journeymen from Millwall and Bradford...

The Ybig battle between those who want to call up every single Irishman (and a few Englishmen) who can kick a ball and those that insist these quasi-qualifiers are actually more important than the World Cup itself because seedings/pots/rankings reasons,  will be far more entertaining than the actual football. 

The O'Shea wrote: Yes, lets just pick exactly the same squad for every match until they slowly drop away into retirement.

Luis Amor Rodriguez wrote: Jaysus, the vitriol on here.  We've lost out significantly in the past by not concentrating on the future in the way that Wales, and say the US, and even England and Scotland have, not to mention Switzerland, France, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, even Albania, Kosovo etc. etc.   Until that changes, our chances of doing anything at international level, bar a freak player or three like Roy or Robbie Keane, McGrath etc coming along, are poor. We, like Wales, need to spread the net as wide as we can. We're doing that successfully at underage, but not at senior.  Put it this way, if Grealish was Welsh-eligible, he'd be involved with the senior training squads at 16, capped in a friendly at 17 (when playing out his skin at L1 level like Ampadu was) and playing competitively at 18.   He'd also have played in a European semi final by now and be a favourite to qualify for the next Euros.  We're far from that.  They've a good team and a positive future and, as much as some of that is down to the presence of a "once in a 100 years" player like Bale, much of it is down to good legacy planning.  Where we're lacking at the moment unfortunately.  The only serious player we have coming through is Rice, having let at least three other PL players slip away in recent years.  You can't say that about the young players coming through at Wales.

Wales, like us and Scotland are falling behind the rest of Europe.

Quick, somebody mention Iceland.