Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
By your logic then, Page should be given all of the credit for Johnson's improvement last night because he was solely to blame for his poor showing on Saturday, yet you're calling for him to be sacked.
In my opinion, Johnson's better performances for Wales have come when he's played down the middle, rather than out wide, so that might go part of the way to explaining his improvement, but I thought that, like all of the outfield players, he was more up for last night's game, so does Page get credit for sending out a motivated team? If he does, he loses any credit gained for that because we looked an unmotivated team on Saturday.
And that I feel puts Page into perspective, he's a fair to middling manager at this level and there are legitimate questions to be asked about his future. Page talked some rubbish after last night's game about how formidable we are at home when the truth is that we didn't finish in the top two of the group because a team which barely makes it into the world's top hundred teams embarrassed us in Cardiff in June and had the better of a draw against us on the weekend.
People have, correctly, pointed out that sacking their manager a few months ago hasn't done Turkey any harm, but I'd say that, although it may not have looked like it on Saturday, the players still want Page to be manager, so I'd hang on until after the Play Offs, when the real verdict can be delivered on the qualification campaign, before making a decision on him - while people need to not lose sight of who we are and how success and failure should be judged when it comes to the national team, I'd say the World Cup Finals have to be viewed as a dismal failure and the same would apply if we didn't come through what is a much easier Euros qualification process than the World Cup one. In such circumstances, I'd be joining you in saying Page should go.