Wales saw off a very limited and niggly (make that dirty) Latvian team by 2-0 in Riga tonight to keep their faint hopes of a second place finish alive following the damage sustained by the two very poor defeats by Armenia and Turkey in June.
On this evidence, Latvia have gone backwards since we beat them 1-0 in Cardiff back in March. They weren’t great then, but they gave us some awkward moments in the closing minutes of the game. At the time, it was possible to see them taking points off the likes of Turkey and Armenia, but it’s now played five, lost five for them and there must be every chance that they’ll not break their points duck in their three remaining games.
Croatia did us a bit of a favour by winning 1-0 in Armenia earlier today and, in doing so, they took charge of the group, as they have a game in hand on everyone else and lead the group on goal difference from Turkey who dropped home points when drawing 1-1 with Armenia on Friday, Croatia’s 5-0 win over on the same day effectively gives them another point because it’s hard to see the sides that are most likely battling for a second place finish improving their goal difference sufficiently to match the Croatians who have to face Latvia for a second time.
As far as Wales are concerned, I’d say they need something like seven points from their last three matches to give themselves a realistic chance of finishing runners up in the group. It seems to me that we are going to have to go to Armenia in November and win, then three days later, we need to repeat our win over the Turks in the 2021 Euros. Before those two games though, we need to repeat the 1-1 home draw with Croatia in 2019.
What are the chances of Wales managing to get those three results or a combination that enables us to get those seven points? Not that good, if you consider how we’ve played in the group so far and the evidence of today’s performance.
While Wales undoubtedly deserved tonight’s win, their finishing left much to be desired- it needed what was a pretty cheap penalty to separate the teams until well into added time when there was a very popular second goal scored by David Brooks.
The match stats make for interesting reading with Wales having 58 per cent possession, there was a twenty seven to eight lead for them in the goal attempt categories, while on target efforts went our way by nine to two. Latvia committed fifteen fouls against our eight, while the Latvians won hands down when it came to bookings by 6-1.
Nine on target efforts from a team that scored twice rather suggests that the opposing goalkeeper has had a good game and there were some good saves from Ozols in the Latvian goal, but the main reason Wales had to wait so long before victory was confirmed was their sub standard finishing.
For about half an hour, Wales played well, but the poor finishing was there from the first few minutes as Brennan Johnson was sent through by an astute ball from Ethan Ampadu (our best player I reckon).
Sadly, Johnson, who cost Spurs £ 50 million on transfer deadline day,, did not have his shooting boots on tonight and so the player who, with some justification, would be portrayed as Wales nearest thing to another Gareth Bale was responsible for a fair proportion of off target efforts as, once again, his finishing for his country remains at odds with what we saw from him at Forest last season.
Ben Davies had a very presentable early chance as well as he was, if anything, too deliberate with his header from six yards out after Chris Mepham had nodded a Harry Wilson corner to him . Wilson and Nico Williams were guilty of not getting their timings right as well as early efforts were not good enough to trouble the Latvians too seriously.
With Ampadu and Jordan James, making an impressive first competitive start for his country, running things in the middle of the park, Wales, effectively, were able to do as they pleased on two thirds of the pitch, but progress in the final third was tougher.
Wales’ we’re just beginning to show a few signs of frustration when a great bit of never say die play by Connor Roberts as he did well to flick an over hit long diagonal ball by Aaron Ramsey up into the air to allow Wilson to challenge for it some twelve yards out. Given Wilson is not the best in the air, there was no great danger for the Latvians at this time, but centreback Dubra, showing the lack of intelligence that was apparent in so much of the Latvians over physical approach, barged into the former City man to give the referee a decision to make when the whole situation could have been handled relatively easily with a bit of sensible defending,
The only surprise coming from the fact that the Slovakian referee Michal Okenas pointed to the spot came from the fact that it was the away side getting the decision, but, in this instance at least, the erratic official got his decision right and it was left to Aaron Ramsey to confidently send the keeper the wrong way.
For a while at least, Wales threatened to run away with things. It was pleasing to see left wing back Williams crossing for right wing back Conor Roberts to get in a good header that brought out one of Ozols’ better saves. Johnson shot wide from a good position about twelve yards out and within seconds, Wilson was running on to a through ball to hit a well struck shot that brought an easier save out of the overworked home keeper.
Latvia couldn’t continue to be as poor and the minutes before half time saw their best spell of the match as Gavin Ward made a bit of a meal of a header by Ikaunieks and a couple of dangerous crosses flew across the Welsh goal with no home player able to get a decisive touch.
The early signs after the break were good as Johnson twice more went close, but then, just three minutes into the second period, Ramsey went off and was replaced by Brooks. Although there looked to be no obvious injury involved, players don’t tend to get taken off for tactical reasons after forty eight minutes, so you had to assume that an injury, with the consequences it might bring for Cardiff City, was the reason for the change (Ramsey said after the game that his withdrawal was precautionary and he should be fine for Saturday’s south Wales derby).
Whatever the seriousness of Ramsey’s injury, Wales were never to recapture the domination of the first third of the game. They were still better than Latvia, but it became a bitty stop, start affair which probably did little to help the home team’s efforts to create some sort of forwards momentum.
However, the truth was that the majority of the hold ups were caused by Welsh players requiring treatment for a succession of knocks and bumps received because their hosts were piling into challenges rather than trying to impose themselves on the game.
The bookings mounted up for the Latvians as a series of fouls of differing degrees of seriousness were committed, but, quite clearly, the worst of them was committed by Ikaunieks who, after being embarrassed by James winning the ball off him so easily, took a hack at the Birmingham youngster which caught him around the knee area.
A yellow card was immediately produced, but it was no surprise when the VAR official recommended that the ref take a second look at the incident as a more severe punishment may be required. One more look should have convinced the referee to produce his red card, but as he viewed what must have been the fifteenth replay he’d seen, I started to think “he’s not going to do anything”. It was still a bit of a shock to see him signal for the game to restart, but the referee clearly had his doubts (what they were, I cannot begin to imagine), but it was almost inevitable that Ikanieks came as close as anyone to scoring for the home side when his shot beat Ward and the net rippled, but only because it had hit the side netting and then rebounded off an advertising board right behind the goal which caused it to look for a second as if the keeper had let one in on his near post.
Wakes’ anger at the lack of a red card for the Latvian number ten may well have been responsible for an upping of Welsh attacking intensity which saw Johnson and Williams denied by Ozols and Brooks missed a great chance when the ball dropped to him following the second of those saves, but he could not get his foot right over the ball and so it flew harmlessly over.
Wales were always vulnerable while it remained 1-0, but Wilson helped to calm any nerves as he won he ball out on the left (did he foul his opponent?) and ran thirty yards to slip a short pass through to Brooks who dinked a lovely shot over the advancing Ozols to make it 2-0 with a quality of finish completely at odds with what had been seen from his team beforehand.
Although he’d returned months ago following the successful treatment of the leukemia he’d suffered from, this felt like the moment Wales got the gifted Brooks back – he’s a player who has had rotten luck in recent years and you only hope now that he is able to fulfil the obvious talent he has from now on while representing his club and country.
So, if he ever was on a hook (not sure he was really), Rob Page has probably wriggled off it after an international break which saw Wales keep two clean sheets while getting a draw and a win. After the game, the Welsh manager said that the two games showed that the squad enjoy playing under his management and talked about them having been “ruthless” against Latvia – not sure that’s the right word to use though, Page may be right about them enjoying playing for him, but ruthless was the last thing Wales were last night, it was their lack of the killer touch which ensured that a game which they should have been out of sight in, was still not won after ninety plus minutes and it’s hard to see us getting the results we need from the next three matches if we continue to be as profligate in front of goal as we were tonight.
Wales have also been playing at age group level. The under 21s play in Lithuania later on Tuesday having beaten the Liechtenstein under 23 team 4-0 in a friendly at Rodney Parade on Friday with two of the goals coming from Rubin Colwill, whose brother Joel made a promising debut at this level in midfield alongside former City Academy member Charlie Crew. Cian Ashford also played for the last twenty minutes or so and, after a quiet start, was able to show what he can contribute as the game drew to a close.
There was very good City representation in the Welsh Under 19 team which travelled to Finland to take on the home team in a pair of Under 19 internationals. There were six City players in the starting line up for Friday’s first game which was deservedly won 1-0 by the Finns and five in the rematch in which the Welsh gained their revenge in another match which produced just the one goal.
