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What are the early lessons we can learn?
That Page is a good as a member of the back room team but does not have the tactical noise to lead as managerOriginally Posted by surge
1. https://www.podcastpeldroed.cymru/
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What are the early lessons we can learn?
This and that Joe Morrell and Jo Allen need to be replaced by Ampadu and a deeper sitting Ramsey
We had the fewest fouls in the tournament but the highest amount of cards, 1 in every 3 of our fouls got a booking (podcast pel-droed).
I thought I was being paranoid but that stat backs up what I was feeling, referees are harsher on the smaller nations. Not so ready to brandish cards to the big Countries who pay for the tournament.
After a couple of days reflection I feel more positive about the tournament as a whole. Lessons learnt for me were;
1. Squad selection, should have taken Robson-Kanu and Vaulks, this would have given us more options form the bench. Colwill and Levitt have plenty of potential tournaments in them, too much of a luxury to take them this time.
2. In game management, need a plan B and need to be able to adjust to the opposition if required. Keep driving the coaching standards higher.
3. Robert Page did well considering he was thrust into the role and I think he should be given a chance to learn lessons from this experience and take it into the WC qualifiers. How he and the backroom staff adapt to the above point will be key.
4. Our young players are gaining experience by being at big tournaments, not by missing out on them like in the past. However, we really need our best players playing week in week out. Lack of game time in season really shows at this level.
5. Very young squad overall, need to cope with set backs and not let decisions affect performance. They will have taken a lot form this tournament and hopefully be better equipped next time. We should build into the planning and psychology that
we will be penalised more and we won't always get the right decisions, so we are fully prepared to raise above it and be better.
6. Wonderful to see Gareth Bale fuming and pissed off at the end of that Denmark game. He cares, I don't think he is going to be leaving football anytime soon (fingers crossed), there is still plenty of fire there.
Broadly speaking, I agree with the thoughts behind this article;-
https://www.theguardian.com/football...s-of-euro-2020
but it is completely at odds with the stats in the post above about how our number of red and yellow cards appears to be completely out of sync with the number of offences committed. It's not just in the Euros as well - we had two players sent off in the three games before the four we played over the last few weeks.
I accept I'm biased, but I look at those four dismissals and think that an argument can be made for Connor Roberts' against the Czech Republic being deserved, but, even then, there is a suspicion that the ref was looking to even things up after an earlier red card for the Czechs.
Kalvin Phillips' challenge on Tuesday was demonstrably worse than Ampadu's, Wilson's was a clear foul and was definitely deserving of a yellow card and Neco Williams' in France was just ridiculous - Phillips' challenge was worse than all four of the Welsh offences, I don't say that because he's English, but because it's plainly the case.
With us going straight into World Cup qualifying matches next, this sequence of red cards cannot continue and Wales need to point out that there appears to be an issue here. They could approach the authorities to see if there is anything they can do to improve things, but the fact that should be emphasised is that, apparently, we've committed less fouls than anyone else in the competition - what I would say though is that the Wilson and Ampadu dismissals were as much down to frustration as anything and I can understand jayne Ludlow's point when she says we were petulant in the closing minutes on Saturday. Therefore, there are ways we can improve on the discipline front, but the bigger problem appears to be the attitude of officials towards us.
Spain took fewer players than they were allowed knowing they'd never need a bloated squad - we didn't use full 23 in 2016 - and younger players would have got more out of this experience than some older players would have offered if taken. I'm happy that Matt Smith, Levitt, Colwill etc. went as a learning experience, just as long as they push on now. But Coleman Had a Dream's podcast point about recognising that Denmark had the upper hand and risks of putting in Neco instead of Gunter is a valid one even though I wasn't calling for it at the time either.
Just because we didn't have many fouls doesn't mean we didn't deserve yellows for those we did commit but I do think potentially the rugby thing where momentum has a big influence on refs decisions which is really unfair. I think VAR has been used well but ridiculous that foul on Moore wasn't recognised, that Moore got booked for that game for lowering his arm in a slightly less controlled way or that Rodon got booked so we definitely experienced worst refereeing performance of the tournament. But Jayne Ludlow was right in that we could have managed the situation better and we need our young team to learn from that.
I think Denmark showed us a lot of respect by changing tactics so early on but we didn't react well to it. Losing a member of senior management team and not replacing them until very late on probably influenced this, but with Albert Stuivenberg expected to leave soon we need to find the right man rather than (all due respect) someone like Kit Symons who knows the system but also has had a relatively extended period of time out of the game. I've liked having Page involved but he needs to be surrounded by right people while temporarily in charge and not yet the manager I want going forward.
I don't like how Wales use Tyler Roberts. There's a big player in there but he's not a striker and would have been better to bring Ramsey off for him or use him as a false winger rather than false 9.
To go off Podcast pel-droed's marking system I'd rank us as having a B minus tournament. We kept the momentum going in getting out the group, did very well to finish second but left on a disappointing note which will hopefully toughen us up a bit going forward.
At a crossroads a bit now but that means we need fans showing up big, and with some patience, to help keep things heading in the right direction.
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