FT: ARMENIA 1 - 1 WALES. Match thread

[the other bob wilson]

Nope thats not my logic at all. Its not 100% manager or 100% players either way. You either have misunderstood my point or you are just being fasetious again.

Obviously players have to take some responsibilty for their own personal performance but the buck does stop with the manager and the manager has to give them the tools and platform to perform and last Saturday, from an attacking players perspective especially, Page certainly did not do that with his personnel choices, formation, or tactics.

8 men behind the ball, ball flying over Wison and Brookes head to an extremely isolated Kieffer Moore. Moore was isolated from Wilson and Brooks and Wilson and Brooks were isolated from the other 8. Im still scratching my head at what the gameplan was with last Saturdays selection and tactics.

Last night first half hour much better and we should have been at least 2up but for the officials, so Page has some sympathy from me there, but by the same token the horse had bolted thanks to him paying Armenia far too much respect last Saturday. I dare say the subdued 2nd half performance last night was down to the players going in at HT to find out Croatia had just taken the lead against Armenia and had we taken all 3 points in Armenia, putting us in the driving street for qualification, then we would have held on to take all 3 last night.

You originally asked why is Johnson switching it on and off like a tap between club and country and that cant be down to management and I would strongly argue that it is. His club level managers clearly play a style that suits being able to get the best out of him as an attacking player. Hes not a dribbler you can give the ball in front of two banks of defence away to Armenia and just expect him to dribble around them like Messi. Weve got to create plays and patterns to get him running into space behind the defence, thats his game and thats down to Page and his team to coach the players to get the best out of them.

Plus, people want him to step up and fill the Bale void and thats never going to happen. Hes not a world class player, or ever likely to be, hes just a very promising young player who will probably have a top level domestic career.

Besides, I want Page out not just based on last Saturday but his tenure overall. His performance since last summers World Cup play offs has been absolutely shocking, hes shown himself to be sub standard tactically and in my opinion in this transition period we need a better management and coaching team to take us forward.

I mean, whats Chris Gunters coaching credentials? Why is he on the coaching staff? Just because hes won a lot of caps? Shall we bring Big Nev back in as GK coach because he wont a lot of caps also? The football management side is run like a local Welsh league outfit and thats probably Pages level too.

Well, my defence of Page, such as it was, was based on a feeling that a few of the posters in the match thread thought that Page was wholly to blame for the individual performances of some players. I picked on Johnson in particular because, fairly or not, my expectations for him were higher because I rate him one of the best players in the squad and at half time on Saturday I thought he was going to be our match winner. He was given plenty of time to influence the game, but he did virtually nothing and I just thought that you couldnt put that wholly down to the manager.

I take the point you are making about what I said oncerning Johnson turning it on and off like a tap, I just think that talent like Johnson’s will show occasionally even if the instructions he gets from his manager makes it hard for him to do so.

Agree about the coaching staff and, if anything, I’d say the poor spell under Page goes back a bit further than last summer - the most impressive thing about the Ukraine game was the result and what was probably Wayne Hennessey’s best game in a Wales shirt.

[Dave Blue]

All this talk of the players wanting the manager etc. well if that is true they wanted him against Croatia then they didn’t want him against Armenia, then they wanted him for the first half last night, then that didn’t want him again in the second half. I do wish the players would make up their minds.