What has that got to do with options for the new manager, he doesnt have to be Welsh. Sure there are some better foreign options to those Welsh options mentioned.

I was trying to answer the question "who the feck would Wales get that could make the slightest bit of difference?".

Wales is not, has never been and never will be a great footballing power. The days of Giggs, Rush, Hughes, Speed, Southall and Saunders are long gone. The current team aren't failing to meet their potential - they simply haven't got any potential

Hmm I dont think they are that bad, they have some decent youngsters coming through. They are never going to be World beaters but I think they should be at least getting closer to qualifying for one of the major tournaments.

Think they need to go for a better manager than the names that were mentioned. Im all for countries sticking to managers from that country if there is one available but looking at possible Welsh options I think they should go for a foreign manager.

The likes of Bellamy, Bale, Gunter, Ledley, Hennessey etc are all half decent players just dont think Toshack has got anywhere near getting the best out of them.

Sorry ET you're talking shite. They have potential. Bale, Gunter, Ramsey, Ledley are all decent players and no where near the full package. When I meant who would they get, I meant what manager would want the job that could make a difference to them players.

And I'm not stupid, I know that Wales is a Rugby nation. The missus is Welsh, I've lived there for a number of years and a lot of my best friends are Welsh, I know the country and the people's mentality well.

The thing is when you mention players like Bellamy, Bale, Ledley I just have to think why aren't they at least as good as Northern Ireland?

My missus is also Welsh and, lthough she likes football, she couldn't give a shit about the Welsh national side. I am not sure how much bearing that has on this discussion anyway.

Bellamy is a good player but probably past his best. Bale, Ledley, Gunter, Ramsey et al., are all decent players but how many are regular starters in the Prem or Champions League? How many would get a place in the England team, or the Chelsea or Man U first XI?

And since when were Northern Ireland the yardstick for European football?

Toshack has been shocking for Wales, how he lasted this long nobody will ever know, with a bit of luck they could qualify, Scotland nearly made it out of a group with France and Italy with hardly a better team than Wales.
A much better manager is needed, not sure who though...

I meant the NI bit as Northen Ireland are so much further up the rankings than them.

I'm comfortable enough to say Bale could get into their side every now and then and would probably be good enough to get into the England side. England are suffering on the left wing and think Bale would do a good job. Bellamy would probably get into the England squad aswell, he was possibly the best player in the Premier League last year.

And BCT, I do believe Scotland are quite a bit better but I can't argue that Toshack is shite. When Hughes was manager they very nearly got out of a group consisting of Italy and Russia, even beating Italy along the way. Also played very well against Germany and Argentina but as soon as Toshack came in, they couldn't get a win from anything.

And since when were England the yardstick?

I think ASTC has a very valid point, he wasnt saying Northern Ireland were great but they came pretty close to qualifying to a major tournament not long back (the last Euros if i remember rightly) where they beat Spain in qualifying and Healy was top scorer, a guy who has never been a regular starter in the Premier League.

They are a country of similar size and are restricted the same in terms of players to select from. It probably fair to say that Wales have better players but in the last couple of decades they have come nowhere near a major tournament. Think thats a pretty fair comparison myself, Wales have seriously underachieved.

I wouldn't say no where near, they were beaten out of a play off spot for Euro 2004 when Russia fielded a player who had been under drug influence. Not saying they'd have won but it's a bit like ROI getting slung out with a handball

Aye forgot about that mate but they have still never really looked like qualifying for anything really and always seem to go out with a bit of a whimper when they certainly have enough decent players to do better.

Yep thats the one, Euro 2004, that was when we beat Turkey to top spot in our group and they went on to lose their playoff to Latvia.

Was that the tournament where Totti spat at that Poulsen bloke Liverpool have just signed?

What a weird tournament that was, Greece winning.

Yep thats the one

One very bizarre competition that was.

England U21's 3-0 Lithuania U21's

A nervous wait afterwards but England were confirmed as one of the 4 best runners up to qualify for the playoffs, the 7 winners will qualify for the finals in 2011 held in Denmark.

A couple of shocks are the Scots winning their group and the reigning champions Germany knocked out.

GROUP WINNERS

GROUP A: Romania
GROUP B: Switzerland
GROUP C: Italy
GROUP D: Holland
GROUP E: Czech Republic
GROUP F: Sweden
GROUP G: Croatia
GROUP H: Ukraine
GROUP I: Greece
GROUP J: SCOTLAND

BEST RUNNERS UP: Spain, ENGLAND, Belarus, Iceland

geet up there rooney son.

Cant believe how comfortable its been for us so far, I dont think the Swiss have even touched the ball yet.

this is too easy, should be at least 4 up

As the football is for some stupid reason on Sky, and I don't have Sky... anyone got a link they could kindly present to me?

HT: 1-0 England

should easily be 4 or 5 at the moment, we've been that dominant

And Inspiration, I cant send it to you by PM, im getting messages saying your inbox is full

don't worry, it's arrived. not sure if my reply got to you but thanks for the steam mate - it's a good one.

sounds like england have done well and switzerland have been shocking. hopefully we can score some goals in the second-half!

LATEST ELSEWHERE

GROUP A
Austria ........ 0-0 ........ Kazakhstan
Germany ........ 3-0 ........ Azerbaijan
Turkey ........ 2-2 ........ Belgium

GROUP B
RESULT - Russia ........ 0-1 ........ Slovakia
Macedonia ........ 1-1 ........ Armenia
Republic Of Ireland ........ 2-1 ........ Andorra

GROUP C
Italy ........ 3-0 ......... Faroe Islands
Serbia ........ 0-0 ........ Slovenia

GROUP D
RESULT - Belarus ........ 0-0 ........ Romania
Albania ........ 1-0 ........ Luxembourg
Bosnia ........ 0-0 ........ France

GROUP E
Holland ........ 2-1 ........ Finland
Hungary ........ 1-0 ........ Moldova
Sweden ........ 5-0 ........ San Marino

GROUP F
RESULT - Malta ........ 0-2 ........ Latvia
RESULT - Georgia ........ 0-0 ........ Israel
Croatia ........ 0-0 ........ Greece

GROUP G
RESULT - Bulgaria ........ 0-1 ........ Montenegro
Switzerland ........ 0-1 ........ England

GROUP H
Denmark ........ 0-0 ........ Iceland
Norway ........ 1-0 ........ Portugal

GROUP I
Czech Republic ........ 0-1 ........ Lithuania
Scotland ........ 0-0 ........ Liechtenstein

I just hope all those wasted 1st half chances dont come back to haunt us.

Bulgaria lost 1-0 at home to Montenegro tonite (which shows just how bad they are now) so we need to win just to regain top spot from them

Jocks booed off at half time, 0-0 against Liechtenstein

Lichsteiner sent off and after seeing the replay, rightly so

Swiss down to 10 men

SCOTLAND 0-1 LIECHTENSTEIN

2-0, Adam Johnson

and Defoe goes off on a stretcher, Darren bent replaces him

2-1 Shaquiri

and what a goal

aye tbf great strike

Scotland equalize

And Portugal have lost 1-0 in Norway

3-1

Darren Bent

Game Over

FT: 3-1, very very good win

And if this is supposed to be the toughest opposition in our group, then the rest of it should be a cakewalk

Wright phillips has had three good chances to put a player in and wasted every one, have never understood his selection in the England team! Anyhow nice win, does that make us better than Spain now

Aye, very good performance.

What a joke of a group though.

Luckily this time people won't be raving about how good England were in the qualifying stages.

Shocking how average Wright-Phillips has become... I could swear he was really good when he was about 21.

GROUP G AS IT STANDS

Played : GD : Points

1. England ................ 2 : +6 : 6
2. Montenegro ................ 2 : +2 : 6
3. Wales ................ 1 : -1 : 0
4. Switzerland ................ 1 : -2 : 0
5. Bulgaria ................ 2 : -5 : 0

Its almost perfect really, who would have thought that our early group rivals would be Montenegro?

Well look on ITV4 now, they're getting thumped 3-0 off the Argies at the moment

Win is always nice but i dont think we were as good as the commentators were making out, thought we were pretty wank against very wank opposition.

I feel another easy qualification followed by tournament flop coming on

still, at least we can sit back and laugh at scotland!

i don't believe it

The problem tonite is that it was too easy, Bulgaria on Friday was the same.

I dont want them to get it into their heads that just because they blitzed past a group full of shitty teams that they are suddenly world beaters again.

Gawd how lucky can the jocks get, a 96th minute winner for them that they did not deserve

They won!

Good old Scotland, overcoming the mighty Liechtenstein in the 97th minute.

France winning as well a bit of a shock.

Oh well, at least we can watch them wildly celebrate a victory over Liechtenstein that mekes it look like as if they won the fecking world cup.

Gotta feel sorry for Liechtenstein though, only 5 minutes added time was called and they scored in the 97th-98th minute

Dont buy into that Yella, they are professional footballers a game should never be too easy. England should have won at least 5-0 tonight.

How the likes of G Johnson, Lescott, Barry get a start for England ill never know. Dont know which game Alan Smith was watching either - apparently that was Defoe's best game for England, he missed 4 sitters for fucks sake!

Im not but I feel that our "easy" qualification was partly to blame for our world cup failure. Yes we won 9 out of 10 but that one defeat in the Ukraine exposed some of the flaws we had and not many people touched on that.

As for the guys you mentioned, I thought Glen Johnson had a decent game tonite, Barry didnt have much to do but Lescott i'll agree, he just doesnt look suited for itnernational football. I would have gone with Gary Cahill tonight instead of him.

I dont think so - it doesnt take a genius to work out that games in a tournament are not gonna be as easy as games against the likes of Andorra, Bugaria, San Marino etc.

We simply aint good enough and have a group of players with a poor attitude.

How the groups are looking

GROUP A
As expected, the Germans are the early pacesetters, they've been matched by Turkey who got a late winner against Belgium tonite

GROUP B
Slovakia's shock win away in Russia has blown this group wide open, the Irish lead after wins over Armenia and Andorra and they can feel equally hopeful after that aforementioned result.

GROUP C
Italy lead the way ahead of Serbia, Northern Ireland's win in Slovenia (like Slovakia) has put them in contention and they too can feel hopeful as both Serbia and Italy over the last year have both shown indifferent form.

GROUP D
France's win in Bosnia has saved a little grace for them but the shock early leaders are Albania who lead Belarus on goal difference

GROUP E
It looks like this group will be a 2 way fight between Holland and Sweden who both won their opening 2 games quite comfortably

GROUP F
In my view, this is the weakest of all 9 groups and arguably the most evenly matched of the lot, Croatia and Israel lead the way but with Latvia and the unbeaten Greece and improving Georgia just behind.

GROUP G
England cakewalking this group after 2 easy wins with the big shock being that Montenegro are matching them at the top backed up by a suprise 1-0 win away in Bulgaria.

GROUP H
This could be where the shock elimination occurs, Portugal, a team in total disarray and their coach suspended for 6 months have had a shocker of a start, an embarassing draw with Cyprus and a defeat away at early pacesetters Norway leving them 4th in the group.

GROUP I
Scotland, despite their poor showings and saving total humiliation after a last minute winner at home to Liechtenstein lead the group on goals scored but Lithuania are the group's suprise package so far, winning 1-0 against the Czech Republic...In Prague!

The premier league is too tough, they were all knackered.

And our defence is too slow.

Absolute bollocks