It’s international week and The Football Project is delighted to welcome Robert McDonald onto the site to preview Wales’ upcoming fixtures. We asked him to be as positive as possible. He tried his best…

At the start of the month, Gary Speed’s tenure as Wales manager stuttered to a fourth defeat in five games with a 2-1 defeat to Australia in a friendly at Cardiff City Stadium, in front of 17 men, women and children.

In what was a trademark lacklustre performance from the Welsh national side, the former Everton midfielder succinctly summed up the match by suggesting that Wales needed to improve defensively and offensively, but were decent for 15 minutes. Indeed, going into the qualifiers against Montenegro and England in the coming week, Speed’s only victory to date came against Northern Ireland, in the World’s Worst Tournament, in a period that has seen Wales lose to England, Scotland and Republic of Ireland (but that shouldn’t be a surprise, given the fact that Wales have only won three matches since November 2009). Ahead of the game against Montenegro, Wales have lost all four of their qualifiers and only mustered a solitary goal.

There have been a couple of positives however, namely the dreamy Aaron Ramsey and Gareth “The Best Player In The World Against Inter Milan” Bale not always being injured. As well as this, there’s the triumphant return of, personal favourite, Jack Collison, who should he get injured again, should be given Joe Ledley’s legs as he doesn’t know how to use them anyway.

The potential of the youthful trio doesn’t compensate for one of the many concerns for Wales, however, and that is the fear that Craig Bellamy, like Ryan Giggs, isn’t actually immortal. The dearth of attacking talent available to Wales has lead to Rob Earnshaw gaining more than 50 caps for his adopted homeland. Until the next Saunders, Rush or (cough) Owen is found, Wales seem likely to continually struggle for this and a plethora of other reasons. After all; what’s the point of Bale going to all the effort of running really fast only to have “The Ghost of Nathan Blake” to aim for in the box?

Out of the likely options, hopes are low to medium for Hal Robson-Kanu, the born and bred Londoner and his career 16 goals, and Simon Church, who spent an approximate 5 minutes in Wales before deciding to play for them but is originally from High Wycombe, but they’re not likely to be challenging many goal scoring records in the near future. The other options are Wolves’ Sam Vokes, the lanky front man from, uh, Southampton, and Steve Morison who has recently joined the English elite by signing for Norwich City from Millwall, but it’s difficult not to point out that he is 27, and from London.

There’s always Ashley Williams’ Franco Baresi impression when the chips are down though, even if he is more Michael Duberry than Gerard Pique, but at least he isn’t Ched Evans. The less is said about Evans, the better. To really gauge the problem, it should be remembered that Jermaine Easter is on the list of stand-by players.

Jermaine Easter, international footballer. It doesn’t sit right.

On the defensive side of things, Swansea’s managing to keep two clean sheets in their first three Premier League matches can only be considered as a positive thing for the national side with Swans captain Ashley Williams and Neil Taylor looking likely to form half of the national side’s back four. And with an abundance of semi-to-remotely decent right backs available (there are four in the squad), the only question mark is over whether James Collins can stay fit enough to form a consistent partnership with Williams in the centre of defence. If Collins can’t, however, then the mantle will fall on any other centre back who isn’t Danny Gabbidon, who showcased his unique talents on his QPR debut and is due an injury any time now. Over to you, Lewis Nyatanga. No, not you Craig Morgan, you sit back down.

In amongst all this player talk, it should be remembered there is another interesting wildcard in the Welsh camp and that is Raymond Verheijen, the Dutch fitness coach. Verheijen, when he isn’t berating 99% of club sides for their “Jurassic Park” training methods on Twitter, is busy introducing new ways to improve fitness. Which is great for the 4 weeks or so he gets with the players a year but redundant in the long term. Although, it is hard to argue that something has to be done, considering that every time there is an international about 78% of the population of Wales declare themselves injured. Hopes are that he might manage to extend Bellamy’s career for 5 minutes, hopefully long enough for him to hit someone with a golf club again.

Expectations, obviously, aren’t particularly high, and there’s not much chance of two resounding wins and six points, but the thought of doubling the “goals for” column will surely have every Welsh punter salivating come kick off. See you on the other side, where SISLY! fully expects injuries aplenty, a sore throat from shouting at Ledley and a deep sense of resignation, hwyl!

Wales’ preferred XI: Hennessey; Eardley, Williams, Blake/Collins*, Taylor; Not Joe Ledley, Ramsey, Vaughan; Bellamy, Church and Bale
* Collins suspended for game against Montenegro.

Robert McDonald can be found scribbling at Holding Midfield and you can follow him on Twitter @schmuckdonald.