Another Euros, another qualification – Ramsey sends Wales to Baku/Rome etc. etc.

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Leaving aside the obvious difference having Bale and Ramsey in the team (not to mention a rejuvenated Joe Allen), it seemed to me that the Wales campaign initially faltered because of not having a target man. They attacked - and it came to nothing because there was no-one in the centre.
Then Moore was introduced and the team clicked. He's raw and makes mistakes and misses, but he's made a huge difference to Wales' performance.

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Originally Posted by Cyclops

Leaving aside the obvious difference having Bale and Ramsey in the team (not to mention a rejuvenated Joe Allen), it seemed to me that the Wales campaign initially faltered because of not having a target man. They attacked - and it came to nothing because there was no-one in the centre.
Then Moore was introduced and the team clicked. He's raw and makes mistakes and misses, but he's made a huge difference to Wales' performance.

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The big difference he's made is that he's managed to hold the ball up and allow us to get further up the pitch and get James and Bale into more dangerous attacking positions. On another thread I read about moving Bale to centre forward to accommodate the return of Brooks but while both are obviously much better players Moore does help bring out the best in our other better players and think we'll continue with him upfront

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Originally Posted by Don Corleone

The big difference he's made is that he's managed to hold the ball up and allow us to get further up the pitch and get James and Bale into more dangerous attacking positions. On another thread I read about moving Bale to centre forward to accommodate the return of Brooks but while both are obviously much better players Moore does help bring out the best in our other better players and think we'll continue with him upfront

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Correct. Bale cant play the lone striker role and whilst his pace seems to have deserted him hes still a fantastic crosser of the ball.

With James improving game by game for club and country then David Brookes is one of the better players we can cope with being out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cyclops

Leaving aside the obvious difference having Bale and Ramsey in the team (not to mention a rejuvenated Joe Allen), it seemed to me that the Wales campaign initially faltered because of not having a target man. They attacked - and it came to nothing because there was no-one in the centre.
Then Moore was introduced and the team clicked. He's raw and makes mistakes and misses, but he's made a huge difference to Wales' performance.

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If you wanted to encapsulate what Ryan Giggs' vision of how he wants his side to play, then I suspect you only need to look at Wales 4 Republic of Ireland 1 when Ethan Ampadu played like someone with one hundred caps and the Irish defence was run ragged by a front four that combined pace, technique and movement in a thrilling manner. We saw more of the same for a short period right at the start of the qualifying campaign when we scored early and caused Slovakia all sorts of problems in the first quarter of the game, but were unable to maintain those standards and, apart from flashes of it on Tuesday, has not been seen since.

There can be no doubt Keiffer Moore was a big factor in turning around our campaign because what looked like a mouth watering group of attacking midfielders were failing to fire properly and a combination of James, Bale, Brooks, Wilson,Tom Lawrence and Tyler Roberts was proving far less potent on grass that it had looked on paper.

However, there is a name missing from those six I mentioned in the last paragraph - Aaron Ramsey was there against Ireland and had been missing from the misfiring pre Moore Welsh forward line. Ramsey is less dynamic in terms of pace than most of the six who carried our attacking hopes in the first half of our qualifying bid, but I would argue he is a more complete footballer than any of them and is, possibly, the missing link between more Ireland like showings and the feeble stuff we saw at times in our first meetings with Croatia, Hungary and Azerbaijan.

Ideally, Wales will be able to arrange a few friendly matches between now and June where, hopefully, the sort of formation which sparkled against the Irish can be tried again - if it were to come off, then that, rather than the Keiffer Moore approach, seems the best way to go while knowing that we also have another string to our attacking bow which has proved effective in very important matches.

"If you wanted to encapsulate what Ryan Giggs' vision of how he wants his side to play, then I suspect you only need to look at Wales 4 Republic of Ireland 1 when Ethan Ampadu played like someone with one hundred caps and the Irish defence was run ragged by a front four that combined pace, technique and movement in a thrilling manner"

Totally and emphatically agree with this.
It was thrown into stark relief by their later performances and while watching them, I wondered why. It was obvious it was because there was no front man - and even Vokes seemed to make a little improvement when he was finally thrown on.
I thought against Hungary that Wales were almost back to those dizzy heights of the RoI match - although they couldn't go gung-ho because of the relative standings in the table.