A SMILE crosses Joe Ledley's face upon being asked about the recent impressive form of Wales, one of Scotland's group opponents when qualifying for World Cup 2014 gets underway next year.
“We’re cooking at the moment,” said the Celtic midfielder on the back of his countrymen winning three of their last four competitive matches.
Wales were thrust into a group also comprising Croatia, Serbia, Belgium and Macedonia as the lowest seeds when the draw was made in Rio de Janeiro in July, but with the likes of Gareth Bale, Craig Bellamy and Aaron Ramsey among their number – as well as Ledley – they will surely be a team to be feared by the rest in the section.
Gary Speed’s side will look to improve their world ranking during the qualifying campaign that begins next September, but Ledley feels they also have a genuine chance of at least making the play-offs.
“I think we’ve found the best formation for us,” he said. “We all know our strengths and the manager has been brilliant. He just lets us get out there and play, and we’ve got players who are good on the ball. We’re hitting good form at the moment and hopefully we can move up the rankings. We’ve got great individuals like Bale, Bellamy and Ramsey and on their day they can kill any defenders. We want to be in the top two and with this group, although it’s difficult, I think anyone can beat anyone. It will be an interesting group and we’ve got to fancy our chances.
“It’s mad that we’re the sixth seeds for the next campaign so we’ll be looking to move up the rankings. The games with Scotland should be great. They’ve got Darren Fletcher, Charlie Adam and a few others in the Premiership, so they’ve got a good squad as well. It’s normally a good game between Wales and Scotland so we’ll look forward to those when they come around.”
Ledley missed Wales’ midweek win in Bulgaria due to injury but has declared himself fit to return for Celtic at Kilmarnock tomorrow. Neil Lennon’s side find themselves trailing Rangers by 10 points and Ledley knows the gap means there is little room for further error.
“We probably have to win all our games until the next Old Firm game now,” he admitted. “There’s a big points difference at the moment, although we’ve got a game in hand. We have to rely on Rangers dropping points as well. There are a lot of games to go, though, and we’re looking forward to the challenge.
“In some of our games we’ve played good football, even against St Johnstone when we had chances to kill the game off. But we haven’t been clinical enough. We’ve had a couple of chances but haven’t put them away. From now until the end of the season, getting points is going to be more important than playing good football.”
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