Coleman’s history makers tiptoe into last eight.

14 Responses to Coleman’s history makers tiptoe into last eight.

1. Russell says:

   June 26, 2016 at 9:22 am

   Thanks Paul do agree with most of your sentiments about the game ,and I have penciled in my diary your 118th birthday year .

   The game as you pointed out descended into a drab but exciting UK derby , I felt it was like a bottom half Premiership club ( Wales ) playing a halt decent Championship team in a cup game. N.I dragged us successfully into a dog fight which we are not good at , playing against passing sides suit us better .

   Hopefully Belgium may not turn out to be such a big hurdle to overcome , as they will give us more space and time if they overcome Hungary , Belgium though will be looking for revenge .

   Like England , NI took the fight to us and disrupted our midfield who under performed, Ledley was very quiet indeed and we lacked that ability to move the ball quickly from the base of the defense swiftly ,lost a lot of second ball challenges. Thought Hennessy was very good,and Ashley Williams should have been dragged off,not allowed to make his own decision.

   Johnny Williams ( who the city should sign now ) brought a much zest needed to that midfield and Robson Kanu held the ball up better than Vokes , as NI tired and perhaps that was the Coleman game plan , try and contain and use the Ali “rope a dope” trick , if it was it nearly failed.

   I do feel its not a classic tournament and a lot of European sides are not on their game , perhaps though the football world is changing towards well organised team spirited sides overcoming the more more powerful nations ?

   Ah well upwards and onward as we chase that comets tail , madness to think were at this stage of the tournament, but very enjoyable , after the this weeks events .
2. Colin Phillips says:

   June 26, 2016 at 9:36 am

   Thanks, Paul, nothing much to add.

   I was very concerned that if Northern Ireland had scored then we would have been out.

   They certainly got their tactics right, every time our midfield had the ball they seemed to be surrounded by three green shirts (did they only have eleven men on the field?) who managed to snuff out (by fair means or foul) any chance of creativity.

   Not sure either side deserved to be in the last eight but we are there, even if it is by default.

   From a Cardiff City point of view not sure it is good for us that Trollope is going to be very late joining up with his players and staff.
3. Clive Harry says:

   June 26, 2016 at 10:29 am

   I really don’t understand how, as group winners, we are only in the last eight by default.
   As for the game itself, everybody agrees it was a tense, nervy affair but I was always confident that game winning flash of inspiration would come from Wales. Because of what the result meant, it was nevertheless always absorbing to watch. The two substitutions seemed to give us an edge but I wasn’t happy about Ashley Williams insisting “I’m fine” with one arm dangling at his side. Courageous as it was, he should have been made to come off.
   Lookin forward to Friday as underdogs now which I think will suit us perfectly.
4. Colin Phillips says:

   June 26, 2016 at 11:09 am

   Perhaps “by default” wasn’t the right phrase but I don’t think we set the world alight with our performance yesterday.

   We were allowed to play well by an awful Russian side, how the hell England didn’t beat them defies belief, perhaps the Russians have deteriorated as the tournament has progressed.

   The game against Slovakia was in the balance for a while and although England didn’t get the winner until the last couple of minutes we can’t argue too much that we deserved any more than we got.

   We are in the last eight but perhaps I am expecting too much in that I hoped we would play with a little more style/ambition whatever you wish to call it.
5. Dai Woosnam says:

   June 26, 2016 at 5:15 pm

   Thanks, as ever, Paul.
   I was shocked to learn that we wore that dreadful charcoal shirt against England, because they had red socks…(so that was deemed a colour clash, and we were the away team).
   But can someone tell me why N.Ireland abandoned their green shirts for their game with us?
   Was it for the colourblind folk in the world?
   I know that they can never tell red from green. They are the two colours that are hardest for them to detect.
   Surely it cannot be because of monochrome televisions! Are there any left working…?
   BTW Colin, you have a more sophisticated telly than my cheapskate one. Yours had three men in green shirts.
   One final thing…can someone stop Taylor taking throw-ins? Hopeless.
   DW.
6. The other Bob Wilson says:

   June 26, 2016 at 8:00 pm

   Thanks to everyone for their replies – not got a clue why both Irish teams had to wear the kits they did for their games over the weekend Dai.
   Colin, I’m doubtful if we’d still be in the competition if we had gone out to play with more style and ambition, that said, I thought we spent most of the first half against Slovakia looking to add to our early lead rather than trying to preserve it. As for the Russian game, I think playing on the break against them was the exactly the right thing to do tactically given that they had to win the match and I would have thought if neutrals were bored by yesterday’s Welsh performance, they should have been excited by last Monday’s.
   Also, it’s a good point you make about Paul Trollope – especially as we still haven’t heard anything official about the new staff he told us would be coming in soon about six weeks ago.
   Agree with you about Ashley Williams Clive.
   Russell, I think a Jonny Williams coming off a successful Euros to work with one of the Welsh coaches would be a great signing for City. I think City would be well placed to get Williams if Palace decided to loan him out again, but, with only a year left on his contract, it wouldn’t surprise me if they preferred to sell him and I would doubt it if we would be prepared to pay the sort of transfer fee he’d command – I believe there is a desire to bring member(s) of the Welsh squad in France to the club, but I’d expect it to be more likely that it would be someone like Robson-Kanu or Cotterill rather than Williams.
   I’ve been thinking that the tournament was heading for a Leicester type winner where team work counted for more than footballing ability, but having just watched Germany demolish Slovakia, I could well be wrong!
7. Mike Hope says:

   June 26, 2016 at 9:11 pm

   As usual a brilliant match summary with sensible comments from Russell & Clive about Ashley’s ” so called bravery”.
   Our achievement in reaching the last eight has given me a reason to be proud of Wales in a week when other events have made me feel embarrassed & even ashamed.
   I received a text from a friend in France on Saturday saying that he was having to deal with taunts from Irish lads that we were the only country to align with England.
   I wrongly thought that our political intelligence had reached its nadia in the Assembly elections when so many of my countrymen, who would rather open a vein rather than vote Conservative, supported a one policy party made up of right wing refugees from the Tories.
   The support was so widespread that a disgraced Tory has-been, better known for a liking for well filled brown envelopes than a desire to improve the living standards of the Welsh, found himself on our pay roll as leader of his so called party.
   Perhaps I am wrong & the Welsh Brexiters rather than being naive & gullible ( euphemisms for thick as merde\ scheisse etc) are actually shrewd & forward thinking because in the full knowledge that, unlike England, we are net beneficiaries of the money going in & coming out of Europe & austerity driven Conservative government will give priority to making up our shortfall.
   The were two aspects of the referendum that I found encouraging.
   Firstly our younger generation is clearly less bigoted than my own & secondly once again the city of the Bluebird has shown itself superior to the land of the Jack!
8. MIKE HOPE says:

   June 26, 2016 at 9:22 pm

   Who the hell is Nadia? I thought I typed nadir!
9. Russell says:

   June 26, 2016 at 11:26 pm

   Belgium on fire tonight , innthecsecon half , let’s hope their flames will be dowsed once again by the mighty dragons on Friday .
10. Dai Woosnam says:

    June 27, 2016 at 2:13 am

    Be of good cheer Mike.
    True, in contrast to you (and to my dear friend AMO who I love and respect as a blood-brother), I am delighted with the recent referendum result, but – trust me Mike – I have been in a worse place than you Bremainers.
    I recall being absolutely gutted in 1997 when we lost the devolution vote by just point six of one percent.
    Two weeks after that referendum, Tim Williams joint leader of the No Campaign came to my then home in Caerphilly for Sunday lunch. I told him that my wife and I could not stomach the triumphalism of the YES winners, and we we were going to be asylum seekers, and go to a town in England that was founded by a Viking…but where we would not have to learn Danish in night school in order to get on.
    And thus it was that the Heath Hospital lost a fine doctor, and Diana Princess of Wales Hospital Grimsby gained an outstanding hospital consultant in my wife.
    DW.
11. Clive Harry says:

    June 27, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    This is a fantastic blog because it is so well written and commented on. Unlike a certain message board, it contains no politics.
    Let’s keep it that way please.
12. Dai Woosnam says:

    June 28, 2016 at 9:02 pm

    Hear hear, Clive.
    It was not I that raised the subject.
    That said, we can never totally escape the political: attitudes to Sir Vincent have been extremely POLITICAL in themselves.

    But if I did not raise the current burning political question in this thread, something that I assuredly DID raise recently was Guy Mowbray’s bizarre pronunciation of Chris Gunter’s surname. I wrote to him to say that I once had a classmate with that surname, and knew how the name was pronounced. (I could have added that I once made a cup of tea for Mr Ray Gunter when he was Secretary of State, and I was the lowest in the pecking order at the HQ of the Department of Emplyment at 8, St James’ Square, just off The Mall.)
    I thought my message had registered, as he seemed to drop his peculiar German delivery of the name…for a couple of games, but now he is back with a more Teutonic slant than ever …and what’s worse, Robbie Savage is ALSO wearing lederhosen when he pronounces the name !! No, no, no…it is NOT pronounced as the first syllable of the very popular German first name of Gunther…!!
    I know we must make allowances for Guy, since he obtained a degree in German from the University of York, but what excuse does Mr Savage have?
    Thank God for Swansea boy Dean Saunders, who thankfully restored our sanity on this issue.

    Paul …can you use your good offices (with City fans via the message boards) to get them to get the message across to the BBC…?
    How would Guy like it if we all pronounced his surname’s first syllable as COW/HOW/NOW…?
    As someone who has suffered half a lifetime from Peter Alliss’s Chinese pronunciation of my surname, I do not regard it as a trivial matter.

    (Yes, Paul….do not say it!
    Maybe I need a month living in Somalia to get a sense of proportion …!!)
    DW.
13. Clive Harry says:

    June 28, 2016 at 10:06 pm

    Cardiff City politics is different Dai. The need for a right wing and a left wing as well as somebody in the centre is a valid matter for discussion!
14. Dai Woosnam says:

    June 30, 2016 at 9:11 am

    What can I say, Clive…?
    I am still smiling at your wit.
    Let me just say this…
    I salute you
    …touché !!

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