By Gareth James
Rob Page believes he can turn the Wales v England World Cup showdown into a scrap with Gareth Southgate to see who’s king of the desert.
Wales manager Page and his England counterpart will meet in Qatar on November 29 in the final round of matches in Group B.
By that stage, the Dragons boss is convinced both sides are capable of getting there having taken maximum points off the USA and Iran to make the Battle of Britain a fight for top spot.
“It will be nice if we both have maximum points going into that final game, but I can’t worry about that now,” said Page.
“I just have to focus on getting maximum points from those first two games. Hopefully, we will get maximum points and in a perfect world be challenging England for the top spot in the group.”
Page’s confidence about beating both the USA – their first opponents – and then Iran is based on their form in overcoming Austria and Ukraine in their play-off matches this summer as well as their showings in a Nations League draw with Belgium, then a 3-2 defeat to the Netherlands.
“We are grateful that we have got to this stage, but managers are greedy,” added Page.
Gary Neville on Wales at World Cup.
🗣”They always have that fire in the belly that they feel more towards England than we do towards them. The fans bring that. England will want to get their business done by the time they play Wales.”
— Phil Blanche (@philblanche) November 13, 2022
“You look at the group and you start to look at the teams individually. There is no disrespect to the other teams, but we have to go into the group with huge confidence that we can get out of the group, and we do.
“I’ve said all along, the levels of performance we saw against the Netherlands and Belgium show we can more than compete with these big nations, and if we keep that performance level high, the results will take care of themselves.”
There is recent precedent, too, for Wales sitting on top of a group in a major tournament finals and pipping England.
It happened at Euro 2016, where Wales finished a point above England even though they lost 2-1 when the teams met in Lens.
Inspired by Gareth Bale, Wales went on to reach the semi-finals, while England suffered one of their most embarrassing tournament exits when they lost 2-1 to Iceland in the round of 16.
England are currently FIFA ranked fifth in the world, while the Americans are 13th – six places higher than Wales.
The Iranians will be written off by many, but their recent impressive results have lifted them to a very respectable 22nd.
Ein Capten 🌎🏆#ArBenYByd | #TogetherStronger pic.twitter.com/a64tJCI6te
— Wales 🏴 (@Cymru) November 13, 2022
But Page believes Bale can still frighten opponents through moments of brilliance even though his captain is now 33 and has not played a full 90 minutes for Los Angeles FC since he signed for them in June.
“When opposing managers see Gareth’s name on the team sheet they’ll know what that means for them,” added Page.
“On big occasions he’ll always turn up, thrive, and enjoy it. There’s no questions about that.”
That view is echoed by Bale’s former teammate, Danny Gabbidon.
Ashley Williams and Danny Gabbidon wear Welsh bucket hats on live TV just moments after Wales secure World Cup place https://t.co/loysqlhU0m pic.twitter.com/UdQUJTHZU6
— WalesOnline 🏴 (@WalesOnline) June 5, 2022
The ex-West Ham defender said: “Gareth is still capable of world class moments – he’s shown it time and time again in a Welsh shirt.
“Is he still the same player he used to be? No, but he’s still capable of doing amazing things.
“Going into a World Cup when you are playing against the best nations in the world, you need your key players to produce those magic moments, and he is still the first name on the team sheet for me.”