With John Toshack and Brian Flynn building Welsh teams of the future at national level, Cardiff City reaching the FA Cup final and Swansea City crowned League One champions, it's only Wrexham who have failed to make it a great year for the Welsh.

Ratcliffe watched his fair share of Wrexham matches from the BBC Wales commentary box and says the root of the problems may have laid with not getting rid of enough players at the end of the 2006/07 season.

"I always look back to the Boston game," said Ratcliffe. "Lessons should have learned but 10 of the team that played in that game against Boston when they stayed up on the last day, started the first game of last season."

In stark contrast to his predecessor, Wrexham's new boss Brian Little axed an amazing 22 players earlier this month and looks like putting the onus on youth for next season.

"It was a massive cull and only time will tell whether Wrexham will get it right and whether they can bounce back at the first time of asking," added Ratcliffe, who despite experiencing the highs as a player winning Championship titles, FA Cups and European trophies, he was also the manager of Shrewsbury Town when they were relegated from the Football League three seasons ago.

"I held my hands up when Shrewsbury went out of the league. It was my fault and I admitted that.

"Brian Little has decided that new blood is needed at Wrexham but it's fair to say that he had more than enough games to turn things around at Wrexham.

"Peter Jackson arrived at Lincoln at about the same time and he got the points. They were below Wrexham at the time but Jacko got them safe well before the end of the season.

"If, by the look of his final two line-ups of the season, Brian goes with youth next season, then there are encouraging signs from the likes of Neil Taylor and Wes Baynes. But the Conference is a tough league and it will interesting to see how they adapt next season."

Swansea City will be another team adapting to a new league as they will be playing Cardiff in the Championship.

"Roberto Martinez has done a good job but he was lucky to inherit what was a very good squad," added Ratcliffe.

"They play good football but he will need to strengthen the defence if they are going to make an impact in a higher division.

"He made a brave decision to sell Lee Trundle but getting a million pounds for a 30-year-old was good business and no matter how good the individual, sometimes you have to sacrifce him for the sake of building a better team.

"And Roberto went out and brought in good players like Bodde in midfield and Bauza. Now he has to do the same this summer."

Ratclife admits the fan base in Swansea will help Martinez's budget and believes that if Cardiff's new ground can do what the Liberty Stadium has done for The Swans, then the Bluebirds could be soaring high too.

"Cardiff have a hard-core support of around 12-18,000 but they'll be wanting a lot more than that when they move out of Ninian Park," added former Bluebird Ratcliffe.

"Dave Jones has done a great job getting them to the FA Cup Final but he was disappointed not to make the play-offs and that has to be the aim for next season.

"The club has exciting young talent in Joe Ledley and Ramsey but it's a question of whether they can keep hold of them."