Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
The negativity in this thread is incredible when you consider that we’ve just played our first match at a World Cup Finals in sixty four years and we got what in the end was a deserved draw against a team which was slightly above us in the world rankings. I think people get spoilt because we’ve qualified for the knock out phase of the three major tournaments we’ve been in before now and are expecting, not hoping for, the same again from what, according to the rankings is the hardest group in this World Cup.
For years we had a team that people would look at and say we had a good, young squad with a lot of potential and in 2016 especially, they fulfilled that potential. Now that “golden generation” are old in football terms, the two best talents from that era are,understandably given the injuries they’ve had and the passing of time, not the same players any more and last night we were missing a very important central midfielder who is also not the player he once was.
Apart from Ben Davies, we don’t have any truly top class performers who are “the right age” for this tournament- we’re a team with a nucleus of great and good players on their way down or promising young ones on the way up. We may not have another golden generation coming through, but they’re, potentially, good enough to ensure that we don’t go so long without qualifying once the trail blazers we have now have retired. We’re a very small country in comparison to most who are here and we’re not as strong as we were six years ago - that’s the reality of our situation.