A good night for Wales and the mystery of City’s trialist goalscorer.

Posted on September 10, 2019 by The other Bob Wilson

Enjoying the performance of a team I was supporting has been something of a rarity this season, but, to some extent anyway, it happened twice yesterday.

To start with the second of the matches, Wales’ 1-0 win over Belarus in a friendly game in front of a crowd of 7,666 at Cardiff City Stadium (apparently, tickets were priced at £20 for a match which, it seems to me, would have made more sense to play at, say, Llanelli or Wrexham) was that relatively rare animal – a friendly international match that was worth watching (not sure someone from Belarus would say that mind).

It would be wrong to say that there haven’t been good friendly performances by Wales down the years – for example, wins over Brazil, Argentina and Germany should never be scoffed at, I can recall big wins over Scotland, a victory in Denmark and, my own recent favourite, a Gareth Bale inspired beating of Iceland.

However, too often, these games fall into the instantly forgettable category and while I don’t see Wales v Belarus in 2019 being talked about at any great length ten years from now, it was a night when Ryan Giggs’ Wales showed some of the potential which shone through in their 4-1 beating of Ireland last year and, at times, in the 1-0 victory over Slovakia which started the current qualifying campaign off.

The Slovakian’s, who probably did Wales a favour by winning 2-1 in Hungary last night, left Cardiff beaten by a single Daniel James goal scored early in the game and they same fate befell the Belarusians. James struck in the sixteenth minute when, not for the first time, Wales pressed their opponents, won the ball and broke at speed as Jonny Williams fed James who cut inside and shot home from the edge of the penalty area with his right foot. My instinct on seeing the goal for the first time was to question the goalkeeping, but I was put right by the first replay I saw of the goal – Plotnikov in the Belarus goal was given no chance as James used a covering defender almost a guide and a blocker of the keeper’s line of sight as he curled the ball around them and into the corner – it was a high quality finish by a player at the top of his game.

More incisive, decisive and pacey than on Friday, the criticism I would aim at Wales is why was their victory margin only one? To some extent, there was bad luck as when Harry Wilson, more influential than against Azerbaijan, shot against the inside of a post from the corner of the penalty area, but the performance of Williams, who I see has been given a man of the match rating by both the BBC and Wales Online rather summed things up for me – “Joniesta” has always been one of my favourite Welsh players because he is so brave in possession, but I thought he lost the ball in promising positions too many times, especially in the second half, to be deserving of such an accolade.

Wales were also guilty of poor finishing at times, with there being no bigger culprit than Gareth Bale, who replaced James for the last thirty five minutes, when he blazed over left footed from eight yards after being set up by a lovely cross from Wilson following a clever, quickly taken, free kick from Ben Davies who, surely, has to come back into the starting line up for the two very important qualifiers to be played next month.

As against Azerbaijan, there needs to be a rider that much bigger tests will come along pretty quickly for the inexperienced central defensive pairing of Mepham and Rodon, but, again, they looked good on the international stage, while there was a promising first appearance in midfield for Joe Morrell, a twenty two year Bristol City player currently on loan at Lincoln.

It should be said as well that Belarus didn’t come across as the most committed of opponents, but, even so, Wales, and their manager, did their cause no harm last night and will go into their games in Slovakia and at home to Croatia in a slightly better frame of mind as a result of what I would call a quietly impressive showing.

Mention of Croatia brings me on to noting that, maybe, the poor showing against Azerbaijan should be reassessed somewhat following their 1-1 home draw with the group favourites yesterday. The point did take Croatia to the top of the table with ten points, while Slovakia now join Hungary on nine having looked to have suffered a possibly terminal blow to their qualifying hopes with that big home defeat by Croatia on Friday.

Last night’s result will make Wales’ task in Slovakia that bit harder, but last night offered hints as to how we could do well over there and then we need to improve on what is a pretty woeful record against Croatia when we face them in Cardiff. We have the advantage of a game in hand on the top three and I feel we could afford to lose one of our last four matches and still qualify as long as the other three were won.

A few hours before the game I was across the road at Leckwith watching City’s under 23 team avoid defeat for the first time this season when they took on Bolton. Indeed, a young side with only the experienced keeper Brian Murphy being an over age player did more than just avoid defeat, they won, again by 1-0, despite having to play the last half an hour with ten men after having Ben Margetson red carded for two bookable offences.

Understandably, City were hanging on at the end and were grateful to Murphy for some good saves and sure handling in those closing stages, but they were well on top when Margetson was, rather harshly given that the referee saw fit to issue a second yellow to Margetson for a fairly innocuous foul on the half way line, sent off.

I enjoyed the game mainly because it gave me a first chance to see newcomers Tavio Kouakou D’Almeida and Tom Sang and only a second opportunity to watch Aaron Boulger in action.

The Irish youngster signed from Shamrock Rovers captained the side and must have impressed watching manager Neil Warnock. Boulger played the first half an hour in a holding midfield position which he filled perfectly. Although you would have thought his small physique would be against him in a team managed by Neil Warnock, he must have won upwards of three quarters of the tackles he went in for and was always available to give his team mates an option in midfield where he moved the ball on in a simple, but effective manner – on this evidence, I’ll be surprised if he does not play at least some first team football for City.

Boulger was slightly less impressive when he moved further forward after about half an hour to switch positions with D’Alemeida. The eighteen year old signed from Auxerre can, apparently, operate as a right back, but here he was in midfield and enjoyed a very influential middle third of the game showing a wider passing range than Boulger and impressing with his defensive anticipation and all round game. D’Almeida was less conspicuous after Margetson’s dismissal, but, like Boulger, he was impressive and you could understand why he was given a place on the sub’s bench in the recent first team game with Luton.

Sang was also prominent as a neat footballer who looked like he could be a threat from free kicks and it was good to see City playing more through the midfield compared to the first game I saw the Development side play this season last month where they were much more direct and reliant on dead ball deliveries.

The goal that decided the game came a couple of minutes into the second half and was a simple one as Bolton half cleared a City attack, pushed forward and were caught out by a header by Trystan Jones I think it was which found its way through to the scorer who comfortably and coolly beat the advancing keeper from about fifteen yards.

If the execution of the goal could be called “simple”, identifying the scorer is anything but that! City’s website and Twitter feed are calling him a trialist, but he has been identified by another website as Liam Soule, a striker who was prominent in West Brom’s run to the Semi Final of the FA Youth Cup last season – I believe he scored in every round for them. Indeed, judging by this story, Borussia Dortmund see him as another Jadon Sancho!

However, the Sun have a different take on the player’s name and, looking at those photos of him, I’m fairly sure he’s not the player I was watching yesterday. The team sheet listed the trialist as Liam Sole and when I looked that name up on my phone at the game, I found this .

Sole is listed as now being without a club on other sites and looks a lot more like the player I saw score yesterday than the one being described as one of West Brom’s best young prospects does – given the career paths of both players and the visual evidence, I think it’s more likely that we have taken a former MK Dons player on trial.

I mentioned Neil Warnock earlier, he was there with his wife watching their son William who started the match at right wing back and then switched to a full back role after Margetson’s dismissal. It was only the second time I’m awareof having seen him play and, being diplomatic, his substitution at half time the first time I watched him did not come as a surprise to me, but he was a lot more impressive yesterday, showing himself to be a dogged defender and accomplished crosser of a ball.

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

Posted on September 7, 2019 by The other Bob Wilson

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.

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