Wales star Gareth Bale is determined to put a spanner in the works for England when the two sides meet in the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign on March 26 (England 1/6 to win Group G).
The Welsh saw any faint hopes of qualifying for the finals in Ukraine and Poland evaporate when they went down 4-1 to Switzerland on Tuesday night – their third consecutive Group G loss following 1-0 reverses against Montenegro and Bulgaria.
The defeat left Wales with no points from three matches and they sit at the bottom of the standings, 10 points behind table-topping Montenegro and seven points behind England in second place.
The Welsh are currently without a permanent manager following the resignation of John Toshack after the Montenegro defeat, with Brian Flynn handling team affairs on a caretaker basis until a permanent replacement is appointed.
There have been a number of high-profile candidates for the job, with Liverpool legend Ian Rush and former Arsenal and Celtic star John Hartson throwing their hats into the ring.
Flynn has also made it clear that he wants the job on a full-time basis but back-to-back defeats under his stewardship will have done his cause no good at all.
England are expected to qualify easily from the group and will fear little from their clash with Wales, but Bale, who admits the banter with his England international Spurs’ team-mates has already been flying about, has made it clear that he and his Welsh colleagues will not just lay down and die against Fabio Capello’s men.
“We’re not going to go out there to concede a loss – we’re going to go out there and give it our all,” he said. “It’s a massive rivalry in country terms and we’ll be giving it 110 per cent. We want to cause a little upset.
“We’ve spoken about it previously, and it’s going to be a big game. They obviously fancy themselves to beat anybody on their day and we’re just going to have to play with no pressure and try to express ourselves.”
Following the England clash, Wales have to wait until September 2 for their next qualifier, with Montenegro set to visit the Millennium Stadium, before the daunting prospect of playing England (8/1 Euro 2012 Outright) at Wembley just four days later.
Matches with Switzerland and Bulgaria follow but, barring a miracle, Wales will be playing for nothing but pride with a new boss in place at the back end of the group stage of the tournament.
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