Mark Hughes is so good that he failed to qualify the best team wales have ever had in a long long time to the euros and already failed to qualify them to the world cup.

Any team with Earnshaw,Hartson,Bellamy,Giggs,Savage,Koumass,Davis,Gabbidon and delany should easily beat the likes of Russia and Northen Ireland(with anb extra man)

They also play so called 'boring football' but actually fail to get the results

I feel it's time to put Mark hughes Wales record into perspective.

Mark Hughes was thrust into the Welsh seat in 1999 at a time when noone expected Wales to qualify for anything. Apart from a flirtation with qualifying for USA94 Welsh football had been oblivious during the 90's. After hughes appointment things started looking up. Yes there were better players but results seemed to be at an even better level.

Now consider their squad:-

Coyne (Burnley), Crossley (Fulham), P Jones (Wolves), Ward (Norwich), Collins (Cardiff), Delaney (Aston Villa), Edwards (Wolves), Gabbidon (Cardiff), Melville (Fulham), Page (Cardiff), Roberts (Tranmere), Thatcher (Man City), Davies (Tottenham), Fletcher (Bournemouth), Johnson, Koumas (both West Brom), Oster (Sunderland), Parry (Cardiff), Pembridge (Fulham), Robinson (Sunderland), Savage (Birmingham), Speed (Bolton), Bellamy (Newcastle), Blake (Leicester), Earnshaw (Cardiff), Hartson (Celtic), Taylor (Nottm For), Giggs (Man Utd).

For an international side that has no depth whatsoever. Like the majority of Welsh sides they have decent players going forward. However their defence is shocking. Not one defender would have a sniff of the England side. Unless they are exceptional, no side can carry a defence like that and not expect the odd poor result thrown in.

Anyway, prior to the start of qulification for Euro 2004 Wales produced a series of excellent friendly results:-

13/02/2002 (H) Argentina 1-1

27/03/2002 (H) Czech Rep 0-0

14/05/2002 (H) Germany 1-0

21/08/2002 (A) Croatia 1-1

The Euro 2004 qualification campaign reads as follows:-

16/10/2002 (H) Italy WON 2-1

9/03/2003 (H) Azerbaijan WON 4-0

10/09/2003 (H) Finland DRAW 1-1

11/10/2003 (H) Serbia & Montenegro LOST 2-3

7/09/2002 (A) Finland WON 2-0

20/11/2002 (A) Azerbaijan WON 2-0

06/09/2003 (A) Italy LOST 0-4

20/08/2003 (A) Serbia & Montenegro LOST 1-0

Wales finished 2nd in their group, into a playoff with the results:-

15/11/2003 (A) Russia DREW0-0

19/11/2003 (H) Russia LOST 0-1

Whit a squad as thin as the one they possess and a defence as poor it's hardly a poor qualification campaign is it?

It looked like it was gonna be O Leary or Venables last weekend for the Newcastle job going off what the bookies said

Indeed just cause such a manager is favourite it can count for nothing at the end of the day

That is true.

however if you look at the first post by Brownie on the Souness Going To Newcastle thread he said he was susipcious because Souness had been backed in to favourite. This was apparantly before Souey had even told our players he was leaving or the press had been informed.

Similar thing has happened with Advocat. He was in from about 33/1 to 9/2 and nobody had even mentioned him. 24 hours later it turns out that he had contacted a player and then put in for the job.

It certainly doesnt mean anything for definate but if theres a large amount of money being staked theres sometimes a slightly stronger reason behind it than speculation.

I don't think Hughes is coming.

Looking at various comments and betting patterns, I reckon Dowie is the man.

Brownie, I expected hughes' price to have drifted back out a bit on BF. He's solidly traded at between 2.6 to 3.0 for 2 days now. Almost a quarter of a million pounds on him.

Martin - At Man U Fergie was close to the sack. It just shows that all managers should be given time though (but thats for another day!).

I'd still like Dowie though. Or Hughes.

John - I may have missed something but how do we know that neither Hughes nor Dowie have applied for the job? Hughes was very cryptic and hasnt said he hasn't applied and as far as i know Dowie hasnt commented. Bearing in mind that there has been hardly any paper speculation on Dowie something has caused £34,000 to be put on him on Betfair (£21,000 more than Strachan) and his odds almost everywhere to tumble to 7/2.

What has Dowie acheived as a player? Not alot.

He probably hasn't managed more than 100 games. Yes he got Palce promoted but with their squad they should have been pushing for the play-offs anyway.

I am just pointing out I don't think the top players will respect someone who a)hasn't any experience and b)hasn't acheived an awful lot.

It's just my opinion that Dowie is too inexpeinced to handle the players we have I just don't think he can command the respect he needs to.

Alex Ferguson achieved not a lot as a player. Whether he was initally respected or not at Aberdeen he proved to be a damn good manager. If we had over-inflated ego superstars then it might have been a problem but we have no really 'top' players.

As far as managerial experience goes Dowie has achieved more than Hughes or Strachan in winning a promotion.

And as Scotty said, if any player does take that attitude then he knows where the M65 is.

If Ferguson, or any other player for that matter, has that attitude then I'd be delighted to see the back of them in January.

Ha ha. Hasta beat me to it almost word for word!

I was just about to say - you stealing my posts Scotty.

I can't see the likes of Ferguson and Amoruso listening to Dowie. I wouldn't if I was them. The fact is he's not big enough for us. We may be a small town club but we have some top, top players. If I was Ferguson and Dowie is appointed I would be on the phone to Souness to organise a January transfer.

Rubbish.

When Moyes went to Everton the players responded to him yet he hadn't achieved what Dowie has in neither his playing or managerial career.

Nor was Steve McLaren a big name apart from his Man U connection when he went to Boro.

O'Leary took Leeds to the champions league semi-finals in his first managerial role.

Jean Tigana bought in a load of players but they still responded to Chris Colema nd when he took over he had the added problem of having to boss his former friends and teammates.

If Ferguson or any other player for that matter carries that attitude then he is living up to the overpaid primadonna hype that surrounds premierleague football these days and is as bad as the likes of Dyer. Besides it's not like the new manager has a team full of world stars like Kluiverts, Ronaldo's and Henrys is it. People like Ferguson and Amorouso have achieved very little in game hence Barrys decision to leave Rangers and 'give it a go' down here. What right would our players have to believe that the new manager was not 'big enough' for them?

Just looking at betfair it beggars belief that someone has put £20 on Howard Kendall, even at 400/1!

What do they think we are ?

Don Mackay was last seen at Airdrie in 2001. The busty lass in our canteen at work has heard that Don believes it's time he made a return to management.

I Wonder?

Seriously I'm quite happy at the mo because the do-not wants of mine were Glenda and Houllier and they seem to be moving further out of the running. Id be happy with Hughes, Dowie and would accept Advocat.

Think of all the speculation and attention on BRFC over the last few days. To think only last Sunday night we were expecting a quiet international week!

anyone got a link to Dowie's match record?

Iain Dowie Managerial record as follows.

             P    W    D   L
QPR          2    1    0    1
OLDHAM       82  31   28   23
PALACE       30  16    4   10

If anyone knows an easier way of laying out a table like the one above please let me know!

Just put £50 on Hughes on Betfair. Cos I'm one crazy guy.

T4E , it's no wonder you've no money by the time the Cheltenham festival arrives!

Where is Jim with his Nightly update ?

Has he not started a new thread yet?

'Oh No Its Peter Andre'

Ian Dowie has come in for some sustained support on betfair to the shortest price he's ever been. He's currently only available at 5/1

My deceased great grandfather has just told me there's a crop circle appeared in Manxman Fields that spells out the name George Graham. It's been confirmed on football-rumours.com. Someone have a quick look in the express and see if it's gospel.

Seriously I want Hughes or Jewell. However the man who is appointed may not be who we ideally want just like when Souness was first brought in. A lot of people were unhappy then but most were won around in the space of 18 months. If we get Strachan, Newell, Advocat or even someone like Hoddle we've no choice but to support the man. I really hope those saying "if we get Mr XXXXX I'm not going down again" are just making throwaway comments.

What paper is this in, the daily rubbish?

As it's a PA article it'll be most of them, all slightly reworded.

However, whilst Jim's always bob-on about the artciles, the articles themself are often bobbins.

No doubt Coventry and Rovers will deny the story tomorrow and as there are no quotes it's definitely a "flyer" by the paper concerned. Yesterday they had McCarthy in the frame.

If even you doubt it's authenticity was it really worth a new thread?

If we did get him he'd bring his mate Stan as first team coach in his jog pants and white trainers.

Some mugs obviously believe it as he's been backed as short as 3/1 on Betfair. However he's now out to 35/1 if you want to believe tabloid codswallop.

Hughes very coy in his post-match interview.

I reckon if an approach is made he will come.

I was thinking the same. As soon as the question came he just started talking about his Welsh players and picking them up again. No comment one way or the other. Contary to earlier press reports I certainly don't feel he's ruled himself out.

Hughes now 6-4 on Betfair

Correct me if I'm wrong Brownie but does the graph not show that there's been about 14k lumped on him in the past hour or so.

Youre right, the spike is quite out of the ordinary.

That's a hell of a lot of money to be throwing at such a bet.

It's either someone 'in the know' or someone with more money than sense. I'm going for the former and expect him to be installed before the Portsmouth game.

The grey bars on the graphs on Betfair are induvidual bets so the £14,000 is just one bet! One very plausable reason for this though is that a Bookmaker may have gone a top price about hughes on Monday (say 9/2 compared to everyone elses 4/1) and got hit quite hard. Now it looks like he is a very realistic option they could be trying to offload ttheirhere liabilities on the best price they can find which would be with Betfair. Still a staggeringly large bet though which never happened on Newcastle's Manager betting until Souness was all but confirmed.

The Moyes betting pattern is similar to the Advocat betting from Monday and as we now know Advocat is interested in the job. Theres over £3,000 on Moyes now on Betfair which has practically all gone on today. This is more money than on people who have been ranked as decent contenders all week such as Glenda and Houllier.

Geroge Graham and Gary Megson have just been added.

With regards to the betfair situation, when looking at the market click on the name of the manager to get a graph on how much money has been traded on each manager and at what price. Now I've not looked since this morning (banned at work    ) but compare the amount of money on Dick Advocat to the amount of money on Mark Hughes and Strachan. If people with inside knowledge of Advocats' appointment did know anything then they are hardly getting stuck in are they.

If the next Newcastle manager market is still available to view look at the graph for Souness. Ignore the looky sod who had £3 on at 1000/1 for a moment. When his price started to crash multiple bets of well over a grand were placed. By early yesterday morning bets of around £20,000 were piling on Souness albeit at small odds.

One report in a Newspaper or on a trustworthy site could bring people to put there fivers and tenners on any one manager. Apart from the top few  there is not an awful lot of money around trying to lay the so called outsiders. This means that if 60 people put a tenner on on the basis of one Newspaper report then £600 has been chucked on and the price could drop quite rapidly giving the 66/1 into 25/1 syndrome. It very rarely means anything until significant bets are being layed.

Advocaat now 8-1.

You can only take what's avaliable, you can't crash in on Advocaat.

Someone is taking every price that becomes available.

Have to say when I made the post at dinner I'd not seen the betfair market since this morning. having looked at Advocat now I'd say he's defo in the frame. Not saying he's gonna get it by any stretch of the imagination but I bet his CV's on the table.

As an alternate point these 2 days are one of the few times I've read most of the posts as they happen during the day. DO YOU LOT NOT WORK?

I think the fact we may be fired up and may actually play our best players in the correct positions will lead to us getting a 1-1 draw. Jon Stead to break his duck for the season and Shearer for the Magpies.

With regards to the betfair situation, when looking at the market click on the name of the manager to get a graph on how much money has been traded on each manager and at what price. Now I've not looked since this morning (banned at work ) but compare the amount of money on Dick Advocat to the amount of money on Mark Hughes and Strachan. If people with inside knowledge of Advocats' appointment did know anything then they are hardly getting stuck in are they.

If the next Newcastle manager market is still available to view look at the graph for Souness. Ignore the looky sod who had £3 on at 1000/1 for a moment. When his price started to crash multiple bets of well over a grand were placed. By early yesterday morning bets of around £20,000 were piling on Souness albeit at small odds.

One report in a Newspaper or on a trustworthy site could bring people to put there fivers and tenners on any one manager. Apart from the top few there is not an awful lot of money around trying to lay the so called outsiders. This means that if 60 people put a tenner on on the basis of one Newspaper report then £600 has been chucked on and the price could drop quite rapidly giving the 66/1 into 25/1 syndrome. It very rarely means anything until significant bets are being layed.

I know Souness as a manager and he has got several weaknesses. I will not comment on what the weaknesses of Souness are, but results in the past have been weak considering the players and money the club have. It's good for Blackburn as a club too, I'm in fact a bit surprised that Newcastle chose him.

If thats not having a bit of a pop I don't know what is.

Bergs having a bit of a pop.

http://skysports.planetfootball.com/list.a...+backs+Pedersen

I wouldn't start worrying too much yet over getting Dick as manager. There's only £350 been traded on him in total which is hardly enough money nationwide to start us panicking. Compare that to Mark Hughes where there's over £10,000 on him with single bets of over £300 regularly occuring and it puts Mr Advocat into the shade a bit.

However don't get too bothered about Betfair. I remember about a year ago John Williams denying a London Evening Standard report that Souey was off to Tottenham as absolute nonsense. Souness' price still contracted to about 1.8 where I layed him for a nice sum. he was back out to 5's the day after.