Kevin Ratcliffe's Wales view

By Kevin Ratcliffe Former Wales and Everton captain

Sadly, after Saturday's defeat against the Republic of Ireland, not many people will be watching Wales play San Marino on Wednesday.

I can't understand why we're playing at the Millennium Stadium because we're never going to fill a stadium of that size against a team like San Marino.

Koumas is that one player who can open up defences with a pass Kevin Ratcliffe

It's a situation we've got to address in the future. We would have been far better off taking this game to the Racecourse, Liberty Stadium or Ninian Park.

But those who do actually turn up to watch, I fully expect them to see Wales beating San Marino.

Jason Koumas' return to the side after suspension is a massive boost. His absence against Ireland was plain to see.

He's been so effective in recent games against Cyprus, Lichtenstein and in the first half against Northern Ireland. When he wants to play, the lad plays.

He's that one player who can open up defences with a pass - and that will be so important against San Marino because they will make it extremely difficult for Wales by putting everybody behind the ball.

It's not something Wales often come across because we are usually the side under pressure and looking to hit teams on the break.

So we'll have to be patient, but if we get an early goal then it will open up and we'll score a few.

If it stays goalless for a while, then it could become very tight and nervous affair.

We played some decent football against Ireland, but my big concern was that we never looked like hurting them.

Everything was played in front of the Irish defence, and that's why I hope John Toshack changes to a 4-4-2 formation on Wednesday.

It was obvious against Ireland that the players struggled with the 3-5-2 formation, and I feel that Toshack is sometimes too clever for the players he's got available.

He's asking a lot from players in the lower leagues to play in a completely different style to what they are used to for their clubs.

They tend to lose concentration more often than the top players, and you have drill instructions into them otherwise they will forget - you only have to tell a Ryan Giggs or Craig Bellamy something once.

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But there's no denying that international football is difficult.

Just look at England at the moment - they've got an abundance of Premiership players who are not performing.

So sometimes a manager has to pick a system that suits the players rather than the manager.

The other concern is that the lack of quality throughout the side is having an adverse effect on Ryan Giggs' play.

He has started to believe he needs to do everything himself. Sometimes he looks for that killer pass instead of keeping things simple.

Wales are also struggling because of a lack of strong characters - players that will stand up and have their say in the changing room or motivate the players.

I've said from the beginning of the campaign that is the weakest Wales squad I've seen.

We've got a lot of young players with potential, but we've got to wait for the likes of Lewin Nyatanga and Gareth Bale to start playing in the Premiership before we can hope to compete against the top sides.

This is a sticky situation for Toshack. But he's an astute, clever man and has been in plenty of similar situations throughout his managerial career.

He's a strong character and it'll take a lot to hurt him.

And looking at the players he's got, I can't imagine another manager could do anything differently so there's now way anybody should be thinking about getting rid of him.