FAW has ‘complete confidence’ in Robert Page despite World Cup disappointment
Robert Page has the full backing of the Football Association of Wales despite his side’s disappointing performance at the World Cup.
FAW chief Noel Mooney said manager Page retains the “complete confidence” of the governing body to continue with his current four-year contract.
Page steered Wales to their first finals in 64 years, but they exited at the group stage after a draw with the United States was followed by defeats to Iran and England.
Four-year contract
Mooney told BBC Radio Wales Sport: “He (Page) very much has our backing, he has a four-year agreement with us.
“He’s a very modern, progressive coach.
“As a manager who’s come in and inherited a team, and took it on for a long time as interim manager, took us to a Euros and to a World Cup, we have complete confidence in Rob and he’s very reflective.”
Page was confirmed as permanent boss earlier this year in succession to Ryan Giggs, having been in caretaker charge since November 2020, and is expected to remain at the helm for Wales’ qualifying campaigns for both Euro 2024 and the 2026 World Cup.
Mooney added that an upcoming review of the team’s performance in Qatar did not suggest Page’s position was in question.
“What you do after a major tournament like this is what you should do, you reflect on that,” said Mooney.
“I think we can be confident that the future for Welsh football is very, very good but… all of us need to show a little bit of patience.”
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
Thats us missing the next one then
Unfortunately he’s just not good enough, the FAW are papering over the cracks, let’s not beat about the bush the Wales World Cup performance was nothing short of awful.
Yeah, young players failed in their moment in the sun, no doubt expecting…a long since past it Bale and Ramsey to do it all for them. Not a single one turned up, we should have got out of that group easily.
What the World Cup exposed was Rob Paige’s tactical nativity as a manager and loyalty towards players like Bale & Ramsey who obviously were not match fit but played on reputation not form. Hopefully he will learn from this experience, as I hope all the players will too, because in the coming months Wales will be starting the qualifying games for the Euros.
I’d say picking Allen to go sums him up perfectly!
I’m sorry but NO! He took Joe Allen who hadn’t played for months and only saw 20 minutes in the entire tournament. Far better options to pick from, why not Jordan Davies from Wrexham? Double the player Joe Allen is! Clearly picking players based on Relationships rather than Quality. The Manager surely has to go when he’s caught doing such a thing.
Don’t forget though qualifying for the World Cup was an enormous achievement in itself, and is much harder to do so than qualifying for the Euros which was only expanded to 24 teams in the run up to Euro 2016. 10 years ago if we had qualified for a major tournament but failed to get out of the group then we would have taken that. I think our expectations went sky high after Euro 2016, I know it was for me. Whilst yes our performance in the world cup was poor, and we need to build for a team post… Read more »