Dean Saunders exclusive: Wales need to adapt playing style without Gareth Bale – and build a statue for him in Cardiff

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Dean Saunders says that Wales should build a statue for their retired hero Gareth Bale – and that the national team may have to adapt their approach to get results without him.

Rob Page’s side go into Sunday’s key qualifier at home to Croatia facing a tough task to reach Euro 2024 automatically, after defeats to Turkey and Armenia earlier in qualifying.

Even if they don’t finish in the top two of their group, Wales will almost certainly go into the play-offs in March, but they have secured victory in only three of their last 15 games, and need to get back into a more regular winning habit to reach next summer’s tournament in Germany.

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The retirement of arguably Wales’ greatest-ever player has made life more challenging for them and Saunders, who worked as a coach with the national team during Bale’s early days at international level, admits his exit has left a huge hole to fill.

“I was fortunate enough to be a coach in the Wales setup for three years,” the 59-year-old told FourFourTwo on behalf of Gem.Bet. “I watched Gareth, and I think 85 per cent of the goals that Wales scored while he was playing, he was involved in – he either scored or was involved in them.

“If you have a look at how many games we won when he didn’t start, it wasn’t many, so I think we should build a statue of him in Cardiff. Without being disrespectful to the rest of the players, he single-handedly got us to the Euros and the World Cup. He scored goals out of nothing – when we needed a goal, he would do something.

Dean Saunders worked with Gareth Bale (Image credit: Getty Images)

“At every club, you have players where you think ‘He looks like he’s going to do something, but he never does, there’s no end product’. He was the opposite, you knew at some point during the game there’d be a sting in the tail from him.”

Joe Allen has also retired from international duty since the World Cup, while Aaron Ramsey has been ruled out of the rest of Wales’ qualifying group because of injury, so Page has had to turn to the country’s up-and-coming players.

A 4-2 home defeat to Armenia in June was something of a shock, and Saunders believes that the side need to take a slightly more counter-attacking approach to get results.

The new generation are coming through post-Bale (Image credit: Jon Hobley/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“Losing Gareth Bale was a blow but we’ve got David Brooks, Harry Wilson, Dan James and Brennan Johnson who have pace,” he says. “I just think we have to go back to a solid defence, and break on teams with the players we’ve got.

“If we start thinking we’re better than we are and start going toe to toe with teams, the Armenia game is an example of where we got counter-attacked. We lost four goals, they missed four as well, we were getting counter-attacked and counter-attacked, because we were committing so many bodies forward.

“I think Pagey resorted to a back five after that, with two in front of them. Obviously we’re missing Joe Allen and it’s hard to replace him unless you’ve got a Premier League player, but we haven’t. Joe played in that position where Declan Rice plays – everyone talks about how important he is, Rodri too, so we need to find a replacement for Joe.”