Bale bails Giggs out, but, on this form, it’s just delaying the inevitable.

Over the past six or seven years, Cardiff City fans have become very used to seeing their team “win ugly”. When it comes to international football, Welsh Cardiff fans have often looked to Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and co for their inspirational moments, but, increasingly under their current manager, France 2016 seems a very distant memory and tonight’s 2-1 win over Euro 2020 qualification group whipping boys Azerbaijan at Cardiff City Stadium had the result but very, very little else going for it.

The similarities between tonight’s match and the two games Cardiff have won this season certainly didn’t begin and end with the scoreline. In each instance, the home side were favourites and got themselves into a winning position, only to get sloppy and allow their opponents right back into contention only for a very late winning goal to secure victories which, arguably, were not deserved.

A difference between the two previous matches and tonight’s though was that, for all the criticism Neil Warnock and his side have taken this season when it comes to style of play and lack of entertainment, the Cardiff performances in winning struck me as a fair bit more convincing than what we saw from Ryan Giggs’ team tonight – for example, Cardiff had spells in both matches where they were playing pretty well by their standards, Wales never reached such heights.

For the first time since their excellent 4-1 win over the Republic of Ireland at the same ground this time last year, Wales managed to score more than once in a match, but the nature of their goals somehow encapsulated the side’s display – they were scruffy, lucky and haphazard.

Against opponents that had conceded ten goals (half of them coming in a 5-1 home defeat to Slovakia in their last match), you couldn’t help but note how hard Wales found it to create chances against a visiting side that looked more assured in possession than their hosts throughout and defended with character and no little skill for most of the game.

Ryan Giggs wasn’t helped by a series of injuries and the continued absence of Aaron Ramsey looks to be hitting his team as it seems to me that they desperately need someone to “knit” all of that attacking talent they have together. Injuries do not totally explain however another team selection which felt like Giggs had just thrown things up in the air and was seeing how they would land.

Joe Rodon of Swansea was rewarded with a first senior cap in recognition of he and his team’s fine start to the season and I thought he was one of very few Welsh success stories on the night. Connor Roberts did pretty well at right back, Dan James often threatened without quite having a major impact, Jonny Williams was as brave and willing to take on responsibility as ever when he came on and, of course, Bale came up trumps in the end of what was a better performance than either of his disappointing June efforts in a Welsh shirt, but it seems to me that we have to accept that the old explosive pace and power has deserted him now.

As for the rest, somewhere between patchy and poor I’d say as Wales proved that for all of their youthful promise, they don’t look ready yet to get close to 2016 levels at the back and that the whole is nowhere near the sum of their parts when it comes to the attacking side of the game.

Wales were going nowhere as an attacking force when they got so lucky in the twenty sixth minute. Bale cut in from the right and hit a shot from about twenty five yards that deflected high up into the air and then dropped towards Azerbaijan defender Pashayev who, without knowing where the ball was, managed to direct a header (to be more accurate, the ball hit his head) ever so gently beyond beyond the wrong footed keeper Agayev and into the net.

Buoyed by that freakish goal, Wales had what was probably their best spell of the game during the rest of the first half — it was never as if they were playing well, but they, did at least, appear to be in control of the game. Finally, with the interval looming, the much hyped Welsh front four clicked as a unit for the first and, possibly, only time as a neat dummy by Bale gave Tom Lawrence a chance to cut inside and fashion a chance for himself which he placed too close to Agayev.

Lawrence, who worked hard throughout, spent the ninety minutes proving that he isn’t a natural number nine as, again, it was shown that Giggs appears to have little faith in Sam Vokes being able to occupy that position. However, with little or no sign of the attacking vibrancy which destroyed the Irish, the less eye catching skills of the Stoke man may have been the better option against a country that has proven itself to be vulnerable in the air at the back against Wales on a few occasions when the countries have met before.

Wales came out for the second half seemingly fired by their coach, but the enthusiasm soon faded as the match settled down to become a rather plodding affair whereby Wales weren’t looking like conceding, but appeared incapable of creating decent opportunities of their own.

At only 1-0 though, any opponent will feel they still have a chance and when Azerbaijan’s came, thanks to a poorly directed pass by Neil Taylor, Emreli was left in on goal with no one able to catch him up. At first, Emreli appeared to have messed up his big chance as he hit a weak effort which was, obligingly, parried back into his path by Wayne Hennessey and this time the number ten rolled his shot beyond the keeper who probably should have done better with the initial effort.

Now Wales were in a position where their qualification hopes could have ended without them being half way through that phase of the competition. Giggs, realising the size of the hole his team was digging for itself, sacrificed defensive midfielder Ethan Ampadu for Vokes, but it was Williams, on for the anonymous Harry Wilson, who made the bigger impact.

Although much that the Charlton man tried did not come off, he did start to trouble an Azerbaijani defence that had encountered few problems before his arrival.

Chances were thin on the ground as Wales suffered from a lack of creativity in forward areas – Roberts shot narrowly wide after being set up by James and another good cross by the Manchester United man flew agonisingly out of the reach of Roberts and Lawrence, but as the match approached its last five minutes, it was Joe Allen’s turn to have a shot deflect high into the air and land very favourably for his team and country.

With Lawrence doing just enough to ensure Agayev could not come out to contest the high ball, Bale leapt like a salmon at the near post to get in a firm header which came off the underside of the crossbar and bounced the right side of the line as far as Wales was concerned by a margin of around a foot.

Given they were playing a team almost a hundred places below them in the World rankings, that should really have been it for Wales, but, in a performance full of carelessness and poor decision making, their last five minutes of the match was probably the sloppiest of the lot.

Quite what Hennessey was trying to do as he rolled a hospital pass to Williams with just about three minutes left on the clock, I don’t know, but it cost Allen a booking as he had little option but to commit what I think of as a professional foul, but is now thought of as taking one for the team,

So, instead of running down the clock sensibly, Wales were facing a free kick just outside their penalty area which, thankfully, didn’t come to anything, yet still the collective brain fade that had gripped the Welsh side continued as Williams tried a fancy flick close to his own goal and the ball was intercepted to give the visitors one last chance which Hennessey was able to smother to his left.

So, with Croatia thumping Slovakia 4-0 in Bratislava, Wales move up to third place three points behind the Croats and top of the table Hungary – Wales will surely need to win one of their two matches in October when they travel to Slovakia and entertain Croatia to keep their chances of qualification alive, but, in truth, they are not going to go through based on what we’ve seen of them in this qualifying group so far.

Whereas the senior side are copping some flak despite winning, the Under 21s deserve nothing but praise after starting off their latest Euro qualifying campaign with a 1-0 victory over Belgium at the Racecourse, Wrexham. Nottingham Forest’s Brennan Johnson came up with a far post volley for the decisive goal with only three minutes played. A very encouraging start then, but the size of the task facing the Under 21s in a tough group can be gauged by the fact that they now entertain Germany on Tuesday at the same venue.