Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
Your memory of the game in March matches mine Bruce. Northern Ireland were slightly the better team until Joe Allen came on and then we started causing them problems. If Ramsey and Bale play like they did on Monday, then we'll have a quality that they won't be able to match, but you couldn't have hand picked a better defence/midfield for the latter to face than Russia and our opponents on Saturday won't be as naive as they were in our previous game.

If it was my choice to make, I'd, just about, go for the same defence and hope that we'll cope with their set pieces, but I'd be tempted to make a change up front. I think Jonny Williams could be effective against a side like Northern Ireland, but that would probably mean we'd have to use Bale in a similar role to the one he played against Slovakia and I'd much prefer him to be running at defenders from deeper positions, so I think I'd bring in Robson-Kanu for Vokes.
I can see the logic behind considering Collins but who would you drop? Chester and Davies have been outstanding and though Williams has been the quieter of the three you're not going to drop your captain. I read somewhere recently about how small a percentage of goals are actually scored from corners so I think we stay with the same back 5. Vokes played well against Russia but I would bring Robson-Kanu back for this game, as you say we need to try and pull their centre halves out of position.

They are very good at defending deep and their record in qualifying was excellent, this wont be easy and we're not at our best when the onus is on us to go forward, that last home game against Andorra being a prime example, we made real hard work of that. Still, I think the quality of the holy trinity of Bale, Allen and Ramsey should see us through a very tight game