Giggs is his own man, but he needs to stick by Roberts
AT some point in the coming weeks, Ryan Giggs will name his Wales backroom team. His choice as No.2 is already out of the bag, with Louis van Gaal’s former assistant Albert Stuivenberg ready to come on board.
After that, it remains anyone’s guess. And therein is the worry, because Giggs has done nothing thus far to convince us Chris Coleman’s former No.2 Osian Roberts will form an integral part of the new senior team set-up.
It is something the FAW hierarchy and the fans want, but there are fears Roberts will be marginalised at best. At worst, he won’t be involved full stop.
After the recent World Cup failure, Wales needed fresh ideas. There were too many putting their heads in the sand about the failure to capitalise upon perhaps the most qualifiable World Cup group in our history.
To a degree, that goodwill was understandable. Coleman and his team had plenty in the bank as a result of the Euros, but the FAW needed to cut through the emotion and deal with harsh realities.
They felt a little bit of a comfort zone had crept into the dressing room and different voices and methods were required. That is why the wish from some players for Carl Robinson to come on board, as a kind of like for like for Coleman, was considered only briefly by the FAW before they rightly threw out the idea. Robinson knew himself he wasn’t ready for a job of this stature.
The new voices and ideas come with Giggs and Stuivenberg, who bring the Manchester United connection to Wales. We should be excited about having the influence from the biggest club in the world, the most successful in the Premier League. Tapping into that mindset can only benefit Wales.
But throwing everything out with the bathwater as part of the change would be a risky strategy.
Giggs will want to do the job his way – and rightly so. There is, though, an army of support that has been put in place by Roberts at the FAW Trust’s Dragon Park HQ and tapping into that structure benefited Coleman and Speed immensely. Any Wales manager would be crazy not to utilise it, in my view.
Roberts heads up that process, of course. Everything revolves around the National Syllabus he helped create called ‘The Welsh Way (first kick to national team),’ which covers everything from the pass and move tactics Wales adopt, to values and the requirement for players to sing the national anthem.
With Speed’s approval, a hightech sports science approach was introduced which has greatly benefited Gareth Bale and his teammates at the highest level.
I have visited Dragon Park on more than one occasion and been privy to the impressive preparation work. Roberts’ staff pour over videotapes and data of Wales opponents and feed the relevant material onto players’ FAW iPads.
They talk about the extra one per cent in sport. For Wales it has been more akin to the extra 20 per cent. Together Stronger is about far more than just the fans and the players.
It also takes in everything that happens behind the scenes. Wales’ Euro success was meticulously planned. Some of Bale’s goal celebrations, where he ran straight to the dugout, were as a result of information fed onto his iPad by the sports scientists which came to fruition in the best possible way. It was shared together. Of course, Giggs may himself also choose to tap into the knowledge supplied by this Welsh support structure. Coleman appeared doubtful himself at first upon taking the job, but quickly bought into it.
On the other hand, Giggs may feel the Manchester United way of doing things is better.
But that would come at a financial cost which the FAW would rightly raise eyebrows at, given what is already in place at Dragon Park.
Many Wales fans have been vocal on social media in demanding the FAW impose Roberts on Giggs. But they can’t do that, nor should they. It would not be fair on either man.
Any manager of Wales has the right to pick his own backroom staff. If Giggs wished to surround himself with Stuivenberg, Paul Scholes, Mike Phelan and the proverbial Old Trafford laundry lady, then that would be his prerogative.
He will or stand or fall by his decisions and results.
However, hopefully what FAW chief executive Jonathan Ford will be busy doing behind the scenes is conducting some kind of charm offensive to persuade Giggs of the excellent work Roberts and his support staff perform.