The miserable 24/25 campaign ended with its game of the season tonight as Belgium and Wales served up a classic which ended Craig Bellamy’s nine game unbeaten run as Welsh manager as his side were edged out 4-3 despite a thrilling comeback by the away side to level at 3-3 after they found themselves three down in twenty nine minutes.
However, for all of Wales’ vibrant attacking play, the Welsh defence, usually the most dependable part of the team, had something of a shocker. The Belgians were pretty dodgy at the back themselves, but their six midfielders and attackers looked a potent mix on paper and so it proved on the grass as well with Man City’s Jeremy Doku turning in a great individual performance which proved to be the difference between the teams.
Craig Bellamy had spoken of him wanting Wales to attack the Belgians and this was reflected in his tactics, more than his selection. In particular Jordan James, who could easily have played as a double pivot with Ethan Ampadu, instead slotted into a more advanced midfield role on the left and Connor Roberts was doing something similar on the right while still having to perform his right back duties.
All of this left Ampadu to be a one man sitting midfield and he was overrun in the first half especially as a series of fluid and speedy home attacks had the Welsh defensive game looking very ragged. Roberts was also left to cope largely on his own defensively and had a torrid time of it against Leandro Trossard, while on the other flank, captain Ben Davies did get support from Sorba Thomas, but they found it hard to cope with the rampant Doku in particular.
Belgium were already in charge when careless Welsh marking from a corner allowed Kevin DeBruyne to cut in and get away a shot which deflected just wide off Brennan Johnson for what looked like another corner. However, referee Irfan Peljto was pointing to the spot as he had adjudged that Johnson had handled the ball. This was the signal for the first of what seemed like tens of VAR checks as they checked the penalty decision and for a possible offside.
I’m not sure if I’m imagining this or not, but it has always seemed to me that VAR checks in international football tend to take far less time than they do in the Premier League, but that was not the case tonight as they took anything up to five minutes ar a time. We did not get to see too many replays of incidents that VAR was considering, but it was clear in this case that Johnson had his hand close to his side and, if it was in an “unnatural position’, it was because he was trying his hardest to avoid the ball contacting his hand.
It was the sort of incident which would not have seen a penalty given pre VAR, but the onset of the second check has allowed for tinkering with laws that worked perfectly well in the past and, by today’s daft interpretation, the decision to award the penalty was probably a correct one.
Romelu Lukaku sent Karl Darlow the wrong way with his penalty to give the Belgians the early advantage and they took heart from this to produce a further fifteen minutes of slick attacking play that looked to have taken the game away from Wales.
Four minutes later, Youri Tielemans finished off a flowing move that saw the home side get in down our right and pull back a cross to the home captain for the night who beat Darlow from around the penalty spot.
After David Brooks had seen his shot saved by Matz Sels straight after the second Belgian goal in Wales’ only worthwhile attack of the first half an hour, normal service was resumed as the shakey Welsh back line buckled time and again.
Wales we’re looking punch drunk as they struggled to clear the ball effectively because they were reacting too slowly as the ball broke to them in their own penalty area – they were also backing off too much, thereby allowing the home side to get shots away.
An example of this came on twenty seven minutes when Doku cut inside Davies and James to shoot from fifteen yards and Darlow was unable to get a strong enough hand on it to keep it out..
3-0 down or not, Wales had a majority of first half possession, but had did little with it ubtil they forced a corner very late in the half which led to Selz being penalised for a foul on Chris Mepham. Again, it looked like a very harsh penalty award to me, but VAR confirmed it and Harry Wilson beat Selz from the spot to give Wales a possible way back into things.
The chance of a Welsh comeback was helped by a couple of substitutions by Belgium at half time as the impressive Trossard and DeCuyper were withdrawn in a move which smacked of the Belgian coach thinking the game was already as good as won.
it took six minutes of the second half for Wales to show this was not the case as Wilson and Johnson combined effectively on the Welsh right to allow the Fulham man to provide an intelligent cross which enabled Thomas to score his first goal for his country with a calm finish from ten yards.
Wales were now playing some impressive stuff and sub Mark Harris was only just wide with a header from a Thomas cross. Now it was the Belgians who were wobbling and when another fine Wilson cross picked out Thomas beyond the far post, the winger kept his cool to guide the ball across goal with his head to where Johnson had the simple task of nodding in from six yards.
Belgium had lost their earlier poise and, in a sign of their concern, one of the half time
Having made attacking substitutions when they were behind, Wales could have done the same by introducing someone like a Josh Sheehan, but they were, seemingly, looking to inflict what would, remarkably, be Belgium’s first defeat in a World Cup or European Championship qualifying fixture since we bear them 1-0 back in 2015.
Wales had produced a fight back to match any I’ve seen from them in around sixty years of watching my country play, but, in effect, they’d got on level terms too quickly because there was still twenty minutes of normal time to play and they weren’t defending well enough to keep Belgium from creating chances in the time that remained.
After five minutes of looking at whether the ball had crossed the touch line or not, VAR decided that it had done so and, in arriving at that decision, denied Lukaku a second goal. Television replays that I saw weren’t conclusive as to whether the right decision had been made, but it did look like it had been.
However, Wales did not build on their reprieve and Belgium came up with a winner with two minutes left to play. Ironically, the goal came from a corner which was wrongly awarded as replays showed that it should have been a goal kick. The corner looked to have been cleared, but then the ball was pumped into a deserted Welsh left back area and from there crossed crossed to an equally deserted right back area where DeBruyne was left completely free to score from eight yard out.
This time there was no way back for Wales who could feel that their defeat was somewhat unlucky – certainly, you would have backed them to win if they’d had a Doku in their team.
North Macedonia had earlier won 1-0 in Kazakhstan to replace us at the top of the table and it looks like it’s very much a three way race to fin ish top now and i can’t help thinking that Waes will have to win all four of their remaining matches to qualify as group winners.
On the club front, Cardiff City keep on proving predictions that they cannot become any more of a aughing stock wrong. On Friday night as I wrote my piece on the Leitchtenstein game, it was as if it was just a question of crossing t’s and dotting i’s as far as our new manager was concerned – although it has nor been confirmed on the day, the word was that it would be all sorted by early this week and Aaron Ramsey would be our manager.
My reaction at this stage of this interminable process is to believe such stories because, surely, those who release information at the club must be absolutely certain of their information to let it go into the public domain. Of course, with this being Vincent Tan’s Cardiff City, I’m proved to be too trusting when it comes to “new manager confirmations” and it doesn’t take too long for the latest “snag” to emerge.
Long suffering City fans really should have been put on their guard when a Tweet emerged from Paul Abbandonato that there would be no confirmation of Ramsey as manager today, it would happen early the following week, but you just want the drip, drip of the Chinese water torture which is Cardiff’s usual snail like progress towards confirming a new manager to end, so you suspend your natural instincts and accept whatever line is being peddled at the time.
The snag first surfaced on Saturday with a story in the Sun about Ramsey agreeing a deal with the Mexican team Pumas, but it was largely dismissed at the time and it was this message yesterday from former (?) Wales Online journalist Phil Blanche that got people believing there was something to the story.
One other thing the Tweet provided as well as a general acceptance cf the validity of the Ramsey turns down Cardiff rumour was that it got the various sides spinning frantically in favour of their favourites.
Chairman Mehmet Dalman may well have taken a “back seat” in the negotiations because of some personal issue, but it’s not a coincidence surely that this information only emerged after the talks with Ramsey broke down. I’ve also seen it suggested that Vincent Tan had little direct inPut into the negotiations which is suggestive of a narrative that it was Ken Choo who was in charge of the club’s talks with Ramsey’s representatives.
There’s also claims out there that Ramsey had been offered the manager’s job weeks ago and had kept the club waiting about a month for his answer. On the other hand, there is a counter claim that when talks took place between the two parties at the end of last week, the wage offered was ‘derisory’ to the extent that negotiations were over almost before they began.
I’m not going to say that one side is definitely right in their claims and the other definitely wrong, but a few things occur to me. First, Ramsey was a club employee at the time Omer Riza was sacked more than seven weeks ago and he had a playing contract that expires at the end of this month. Therefore, the notion that wage negotiations didn’t start until a few days ago seems an outlandish one – there may not have been formal negotiations, but, surely “ball park” type discussions had taken place?
Secondly, if we accept that the job was offered to Aaron Ramsey around a month ago, then wouldn’t the club going off chasing Nathan Jones as their number one choice about halfway through that month make Ramsey and his representatives question how serious the earlier job offer from City was?
Thirdly, it was pretty clear that Aaron Ramsey believed that an off restructuring of the club addressing the long term lack of footballing knowledge in the Boardroom and among senior figures on the admin side should be addressed – there was talk of the need for a Director of Football and a reappraisal of the recruitment side.
In such circumstances, what does it say about the club’s commitment to change to have someone heading negotiations on their side who would, in all likelihood, see their job description affected in a negative manner if such changes were carried out?
Suffice it to say, the whole things an enormous waste as the Tan ownership, once again, shows the extent of their limitations. If we accept (a dangerous thing to do with this club) that Ramsey’s side are not “playing 4D chess” by planting the Pumas move story to try and get more concessions from the club, then it seems we’re left with what were, effectively, choices three, four and five on the list of five names compiled by group set up all of these weeks ago to advise the club in their latest search for a manager.
Ramsey turning down City is, obviously, bad news for the City hierarchy, but given how much store was set in stories about the player having ‘come home” to help hjis boyhood club when he signed for us two years ago, it also has to be something of a humiliation.
It’s generally accepted now that Des Buckingham, Brian Barry Murphy and Ian Evatt were on the list presented to the club as well as Messrs Ramsey and Jones and, for now at least, it’s Buckingham who looks most likely to be the club’s choice as Barry Murphy is a strong odds on contender for the vacant Plymouth job. However, are all three men still willing to work for Vincent Tan and his part time CEO and Chairman given the events of the last few weeks? Who could blame them if they weren’t!
