It could have been a win, but, equally, it could have been a defeat, so I suppose that Wales’ 1-1 draw tonight against Slovakia in their latest Euro 2020 qualification match was a fair outcome at the end of an entertaining struggle. However, having taken the lead and then being up against ten men for the dying minutes of the game, it’s only natural that there was a feeling of what might have been at the final whistle.
With Croatia beating Hungary 3-0 to take themselves to thirteen points, it’s probably realistic to think that Wales are only chasing the one qualifying spot now. Therefore, if we accept that, then a second successive defeat for Hungary after they must have felt they had one foot in the Finals after beating us in June represents a serious loss of momentum for the Magyars – they should beat Azerbaijan, who have been more competitive than you expect a bottom placed side to be, on Sunday, but you’d like to think Wales can work themselves into a position whereby a win in Cardiff in the final game in the group would see us finish above them.
I’ll come to what we have to do to overhaul Slovakia later, but a defeat tonight would have left us six points adrift of them. Given that one of their two remaining matches is against Azerbaijan at home, it’s likely that anything less than nine points from our final three matches would have given us a chance of finishing level on points with them. Even then, a Slovakian win by a two goal margin would have meant that they would have only needed to beat Azerbaijan to finish ahead of us.
As has been the case throughout this qualifying group, Wales were hit by injuries. An abductor muscle twinge meant that Aaron Ramsey did not even fly out with the squad earlier this week as he maintained his 100 per cent non appearance record for us in this group. There is talk of him being fit enough to feature against Croatia on Sunday, but I must admit that the term “I’ll believe it when I see it springs to mind” regarding a player who has had stinking luck with injuries over the past year.
Bournemouth’s Chris Mepham was another injury victim, while the word from out in Slovakia was that neither Harry Wilson or Tom Lawrence were considered fit enough to start the game – Wilson made it on to the pitch for the last quarter of the match, but Lawrence, under something of a cloud following his arrest for drink driving last month, stayed on the bench.
The assumption had been that Ashley Williams would step in for Mepham, with some advocating that Ben Davies be picked as a third centreback with Neil Taylor being drafted in to play left wing back. In none of the pre match selection conversations I saw was Charlton’s Tom Lockyer (who was released from City’s Academy as a teenager) mentioned as a possible starter, but Ryan Giggs lived up to his reputation as a manager who is hard to predict by going for a back four which featured Lockyer alongside Joe Rodon.
Ethan Ampadu’s inclusion alongside Joe Allen despite not having played a minutes football yet for Leipzig since joining them on loan rather told the tale of Wales’ lack of depth in the midfield area now that stalwarts such as Joe Ledley and Andy King have dropped out of contention. Up front, Keifer Moore’s surprise inclusion meant that, along with Lockyer, Wales had two players making their debuts as a starter in a competitive match.
When you consider how many of the Welsh team are not playing regular first team football this season, tonight’s outcome does not seem a bad one to me and although possession figures of 70/30 in favour of the home side and a second half which saw Wales spend much of the second half on the back foot suggest the match went a certain way, in truth, we were the better side in the first half and caused problems throughout for the home side with an ability to break quickly when possession was turned over.
Lockyer, who otherwise had a sound game, got his side in early trouble when he was dispossessed and it needed some marvellous covering work by Ampadu to prevent Mac giving the home side a lead which would have been very difficult to overhaul, but, that apart, Wales settled well.
A fine header from Gareth Bale from a Connor Roberts cross came back off the angle of crossbar and upright, but instead of cursing their bad luck, Wales struck back within seconds as the captain picked out Dan James and the Manchester United flyer got past his man and put in a cross that the unmarked Moore powered into the net with a firm header from about eight yards out.
Moore had already caused the home side’s centrebacks plenty of problems with his aerial prowess and physical approach, so the goal was just reward for a player who has not yet scored in his nine appearances for his new club, Wigan.
While it would be wrong to say that Wales were dominant after going ahead, they were comfortable for a while and there was always a chance that their counter attacks would catch out a rather ponderous looking home defence.
Unfortunately though, Slovakia, prompted by the probing passes of their captain Marek Hamsik, began to enjoy success down Wales’ left where Davies often found himself isolated and facing plenty of two on ones. For all that it looked threatening, nothing much came of Slovakia’s promising work out on the right and Wales got to half time with Wayne Hennessey not having had an difficult save to make and somewhat miffed that Spanish referee Carlos del Cerro Grande did not give a penalty when Jonny Williams went down under a challenge from Norbert Gyomber (subsequent replays of the incident tended to suggest that the ref had made the right decision though).
Roberts had the ball in the net for Wales early in the second half, but the whistle had already gone for a foul by Moore on home keeper Dubravka and there was no referee’s intervention to help them out shortly afterwards when Juraj Kucka volleyed a Roberts headed clearance back past Hennessey for a fine equaliser from the edge of the penalty area.
Slovakia were having their best spell of the game now and Hennessey had to produce the save of the match to deny Albert Rusnak. That stop started a gradual lifting of the siege on Wales’ part as they came close to what may well have been a decisive third goal of the game when Rodon twice went close.
The match seemingly swung in Wales’ favour when home centreback Gyomber, who struggled all evening against Moore’s physicality, clambered clumsily all over the striker and was shown a second yellow card.
What may have been a very awkward last ten minutes or so for the home team passed off fairly uneventfully though with only James’ snatching at a chance presented to him by Moore representing a serious opportunity for Wales – the contrast between James hurried and wild effort contrasting markedly with his finishing early in the season when he was flying at Manchester United.
In the end, Wales could contemplate drawing level with their hosts still with their game in hand, but, instead, the gap remains at three points with the Slovaks still having to travel to Croatia. Perhaps crucially however, it is Wales who will have the advantage over their rivals if they finish level on points, because our results were better than theirs in the head to head battles between the teams.
That point means that even a loss to Croatia (and we do lose to them with alarming frequency) on the weekend does not necessarily rule us out of contention – we would have to rely on a Croatian home win over the Slovaks, but wins in our last two matches would see us finish above them if that happened.
So, in essence, a night which was supposed to be decisive when it came to our qualifying chances turned out to be nothing of the sort, but living on to fight another day has to be a good outcome and now it looks like it will be November before our fate is known.
Mixed results for Wales age group teams, the Under 21’s lost a 1-0 lead in Moldova as two goals either side of half time were enough to give the home side the win despite them having to play the last forty minutes or so with ten men – Wales have now lost twice after opening with a fine win over Belgium and qualification hopes for the Euro Finals look to be over already. Meanwhile, the Under 17s are in one of those quickfire qualifying groups which are held in one country with all of the matches completed in a week or so and they made a good start by beating Slovenia 1-0 thanks to a goal scored a couple of minutes into added time – as hosts the Netherlands drew 1-1 with Kosovo in the other game, Wales are the early pace setters and they now face the Netherlands and tomorrow and Kosovo on Tuesday.
