As Wales manager Rob page was dismissed after failing to qualify for Euro 2024 this summer, they shortened the candidates and have appointed former player Craig Bellamy as their new boss. So what’s his goals and what’s expected of his tenure?
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00:00So, James, on Welsh international football, obviously it's been a bit of a whirlwind since
00:07not qualifying for the Euros and then Rob Page, obviously, departing. Now they've got
00:12Craig Bellamy. Just firstly, your initial thoughts. Obviously, you were in attendance
00:16at his first presser. Quite a lot of positives to take from that.
00:21Absolutely, yeah. I thought Craig Bellamy was an obvious choice from the Football Association
00:27of Wales. He knows the system. He's been there. He's been part of it. And he impressed me
00:34at the presser. He said all the right things. Spoke for quite a while about his philosophy
00:39on football, himself. I think that was a big question mark before the appointment with
00:45Craig Bellamy. We all know what he was like as a player. He was a controversial figure,
00:50a bit of a hothead. I think he had a kind of name for himself as. But he addressed that
00:54early doors in the presser. He spoke about that. He said he's a different person. He's
00:59grown up. He also talked quite a lot about his kind of new outlook on life. It was very
01:04like philosophical. It was interesting, but it was positive. I thought it was really good.
01:11And as a look at his expectations, obviously, that's the main question. Where do you sort
01:16of draw the line with what he's got to go on and achieve? He's fantastic. He's a former
01:22player and he's made all these changes. But at the end of the day, results are what keep
01:26you in these jobs. So where are the sort of expectations now for the new Wales boss?
01:33So I think the expectations for any Wales boss over the last, what would be now, almost
01:3810 years after what happened at the Euros, is qualifying for these tournaments. It is
01:43getting to major tournaments. I don't think that his job's on the line if he doesn't make
01:47it to the World Cup at all. I don't think that's a question mark. I think that if he
01:51didn't make it to the following Euros, that would already be a question mark over him
01:56kind of thing. But I think it's about performances. I think it's about getting some of those younger
02:00players playing and winning the games we should be winning. I think that's what we didn't
02:06do under Rob Page. We won some games, you know, that were massive wins, big scalp on
02:10Croatia and things, but we lost games we shouldn't have lost. I think as long as Craig Bellamy
02:17gets rid of that, then we should be OK. Craig Bellamy's only had a few years. He's never
02:22been a number one. His first job was a number one. But in his few years of management, he
02:26spoke about this in his presser. He had a year of winning every game. He was, when Burnley
02:32were in the championship, he was number two to Vince and Company. They won all the time.
02:37They constantly just kept winning. They smashed the league. Go to the Premier League and they
02:41lose every week. He said, he mentioned this. He was there like, I know both sides of the
02:45coin now. I've seen it. I know how to deal with these things. And you just got to hope
02:50he's going to take that forward and bring that consistency. And yeah, I think he'll
02:56have a lot of passion. So I think there's high hopes.