You can talk about bad luck in being reduced to ten men and losing to goals conceded in the ninety eighth and one hundred and first minutes, but, sadly, that’s being delusional. Although there’s still an opportunity for this Welsh team to make me look an idiot when we face the old enemy England on Tuesday, the 2-0 defeat by Iran this morning had the feel of an era ending.
Back in 2006, Gareth Bale made his international debut as the first member of a golden generation of Welsh players to break through at senior level and today he became our most capped player, but, on this evidence, you have to wonder how much further he can extend that record.
Wayne Hennessey, Joe Allen and Aaron Ramsey are the other survivors of the golden generation who made it to a World Cup, but today was a chastening experience for the three of them with our goalkeeper becoming the first player in the tournament to be shown a red card, Allen being at fault with both goals and Ramsey, as on Monday, being one of our weakest performers.
I want to focus on Allen first. The desperation to, first, get him into the squad and, second, on to the pitch despite him not having played since sustaining a hamstring injury in mid September tells you so much. For all of the column inches taken up by Bale and Ramsey, I think there’s a strong argument for saying that Allen has been the most important member of the Welsh side in many respects.
Like all of the outfield surviving members of the golden generation, he is not the player he once was, but, whereas Bale and Ramsey come up with moments of quality which roll back the years, a match fit Joe Allen can still make the team play better because he is the fulcrum which enables others to prosper.
While not every team in this tournament has a nucleus of quality central defensive midfielders (CDMs) to fall back on, most of the European teams here do. Contrast that to Wales, who have two candidates for that position at League One clubs and another one at the bottom of the Scottish Premier League in their squad – Joe Ledley is hardly the first name you think of in terms of a golden generation, but we could really do with a player like him now..
Allen has become so proficient at the role of an international CDM that as recently as June, he was able to play in the position by himself in the so important Play Off game with Ukraine. The visitors were good enough to make it a very tough occasion for any opposing CDM that day and Allen had a testing time of it during which he got booked early on and really should have had a penalty given against him. However, the Swansea man played a full part in getting us through the game and to our first World Cup in sixty-four years.
I’m reminded of something Brian Flynn said in BBC Wales’ excellent Together Stronger series which I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t watched it yet. Flynn spoke of a conversation he’d had with John Toshack in which Wales’ former manager talked about the young players in the squad needing to get to the forty cap mark before they would be fully at home at international level.
I’d say Allen is a case in point of what Toshack meant – he knows his position off by heart now and, while the legs won’t carry him as far as they once did, he can still make up for it through anticipation skills acquired via the seventy plus caps he has over a thirteen year international career.
Today was a step too far for Allen though. Brought on into what was ,apparently, the hottest day so far in the tournament (the game was played at the worst possible time of day for Wales as well) to play his first competitive game of any sort in a couple of months, Allen cleared the ball straight to Rouzbeh Chesmi who fired in from twenty yards to break the deadlock and then, three minutes later he lost the ball to allow an Iranian break which ended with Ramin Rezaiean slotting in an irrelevant, in terms of this game at least, second goal.
Wales had continued with a back three and a single shielding midfielder when one of the lessons of the first half of the American game was surely that something different to what they had started the game with was required. When you consider that we have a plethora of wingers, number ten and second striker types who won’t contribute a huge amount defensively, it seems to me that we need two shielding in front of the defence and, maybe, a flat back four.
Ethan Ampadu is pretty close to that forty cap mark now and did a good job in very testing circumstances in the lone CDM role on Monday, but he struggled today and could have done with a match fit Allen alongside him. The problem is that, if you’re talking about this level of competition, the cupboard is pretty bare even if Ampadu develops into a reliable performer in the position, because the day cannot be too far away now when we will have to cope without Joe Allen.
As for the manager, he had his doubters after the Euros. For myself, I don’t think he did too badly there, but, this time around, he’s had a poor tournament so far.
Granted, I don’t envy Rob Page his job in a competition like this with a squad which has been over reliant on a group of fading stars for too long, but he got it wrong by leaving Keiffer Moore out against the USA and, judging by the selection today, he seems to have decided the poor first half on Monday was just one of those things when there had been signs for some time that it had been coming.
Having got out of jail with the half time introduction of Moore first time around, Page had nothing to offer here to change the flow of a game both sides needed to win. Without a base in the middle of the park to build from, Wales were completely unable to impose themselves on proceedings despite “winning” the possession battle 62/38 and the longer the game went on, the more marked the Iranian superiority became.
Having been denied a goal by a VAR call which Page called marginal, Iran shaded the first half, but I’m afraid the second half turned into a repeat of the first one on Monday. Iran hit both posts in the opening minutes of the second period, but they must have known that, if they could find a goal for themselves, their opponents had little to threaten an equaliser with.
Any lingering hopes that Wales could sneak a highly unlikely win ended on eighty six minutes when they were caught out by a long ball over the top which saw Hennessey come rushing out of his goal to clatter Medhi Taremi. It would be a straight red no doubt in the UK, but it looked like the goalkeeper would get away with a yellow until VAR persuaded the ref to reconsider and so Hennessey became the third Welsh player to be dismissed in their last four matches in major tournaments – a record which only makes the very tough task of competing in Euros’ and World Cups even harder..
Even in the very unlikely event of Wales turning things around and qualifying on Tuesday, this feels very much like a time of change in Welsh football. It seems certain that those moments I talked about from Bale and Ramsey will get fewer and fewer in the coming months and years and so questions will need to be asked about the current policy of if they’re “fit”, they play with those two great servants of Welsh football.
Wales seem to have a conveyer belt of the aforesaid wingers/number tens/second strikers coming through, but I could see a very quick promotion to the senior squad for a stand out sixteen/seventeen year old central midfielder if such a player exists – as it is, a quick call up for Birmingham’s Jordan James appears both highly likely and needed.
Robert Page talked about the supporters who’ve made the trip to Qatar being owed a performance by the team and he’s right, but it’s hard to see where it comes from. For now, the height of my ambitions will be a hope of an exit from the competition with some respectability and that one or both of City’s representatives see some game time.
Coming back to domestic football, for years Swansea City were the dominant force in Welsh women’s club football, but that’s become more of a big three in the past year with an improvement by City and Cardiff Met. Having beaten the jacks already this season, the unbeaten City side staked a real claim for superiority by beating Met 5-0 last night with the goals coming from Siobhan Walsh, Danielle Broadhurst, Rihanna Oakley, Phoebe Poole and Danielle Green.
A few hours after Wales’ loss, City’s under 21s faced Reading in the Premier League Cup at Leckwith and edged a very physical encounter 1-0 to continue their improved form (think it’s seven wins out of nine now).
Reading lost their captain to a second yellow card around the hour mark. Up to then, I thought the visitors had been slightly the better side. However, the dismissal helped turn things in City’s favour and the visitors should really have been down to nine following a punch on Caleb Hughes.
Joel Colwill played a big part in the goal on seventy-six minutes when his shot from distance was turned aside for a corner by the keeper. Hughes’ flag kick looked to have crossed the line, but play was waved on and just when Reading thought they’d escaped, Colwill shot again, this time from around thirty yards, and the goalkeeper’s save was only into the path of sub Morgan Wigley who calmly netted from eight yards.
We are a smaller nation with a smaller pool of talent to choose from so we’re always going to be reliant on an XI s from four different categories: i) somewhat past their peak, ii) still learning their game, iii) unsung heroes and iv) the main men. For better or worse we’re like a club side so it’s about getting the balance and the tactics right to give us the best chance of performing well, but for 1.5 games out of the 2 so far we’ve, sadly, got that a bit wrong.
Gavin Chesterfield* and Osian Roberts have both recently commented on the 5 pillars of football as: technical, tactical, physical, social and psychological.
I don’t think Iran really blew us away on any of the 5 but we (whether it was the heat or the occasion) appeared desperate to score a goal every 30 seconds rather than being prepared to pass around and keep the ball for a minute. Given it was so hot and midfield was our weakest area of the pitch, why not try to control the tempo of the game a bit more including by winning throw-ins high up the pitch? And while Iran were deserving winners, I’m struggling think what they did to win other than stay calm and wait for us to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Arguably, we actually played a bit better after the red card because we less frequently tried high risk, low reward passes. I really don’t get why Morrell wasn’t brought on to play with Ampadu (then Allen for Ampadu later given how much hard work Ampadu displayed over two games) to give us some resemblance of a midfield, and I feel gutted for Allen who had one shocking touch in the game – almost everyone else had multiple – but it was the moment directly before conceding the critical goal.
A draw would have been a very credible result and taken us into last fixture knowing an unlikely win would definitely see us through but also a draw gave us an outside chance.
I think Page will be asked tough questions coming out the tournament and, while he’s done well in most categories, I hope we’re looking for someone new on the coaching side to give us some greater tactical nous. We had been praised for how well we’d been coached in Euro 2020 but that seems a long time ago now and time to make pro-active change. Managers from Coleman onwards were hardly tactical geniuses, but we’ve gone from Osian Roberts to Albert Stuivenberg to Kit Symons and Alan Knill and ended up playing a 5-0-5 in must win game so…
If we’re looking for positives: i) Rodon, Mepham, Davies, Neco, Ampadu (our current player of the tournament) and Wilson have been our best players so far and will all be big parts of campaigns going forward, and ii) the next generation have been set the challenge of getting to another World Cup and this time doing a bit more to demonstrate our best. It’s definitely not going to be like post 2016 where we didn’t really know what we were working towards for a while because we were coming off such a great high.
If we’re looking for negatives: Rob Page making a comment about Germany’s protest against FIFA silencing their anti-discrimination campaign in such a tactless and stupid manner only to then lose badly ourselves… We’ve got so much right off the pitch this tournament, but that comment was so, so embarrassing and when people say we didn’t behave like us for majority of the tournament, well that comment was part of that.
Ultimately I’m so proud of what we’ve done over past 12 years as football nation and while we have lots still left to work on, we’ve had some wonderful days and know we’re together stronger. Oh, and there’s one game left where we have a chance of leaving on a real high!!
*A bit concerned that Chesterfield recently said that would only focus on 3 of the pillars and allow 2 to develop themselves, in terms of Cardiff City’s youth structure. This game showed that player’s having good tactical awareness is so valuable.
Thanks Paul.
You have summed it up perfectly and exactly my thoughts on our ageing heroes, loss of midfield control and just a bad case of the jitters at exactly the wrong time. After all that good will and positive vibes it feels such a blow and reminiscent of “old” Wales.
The lack of intensity could have been down to the heat as much as older legs, but for 2 games now there were too many poor passes, poor control and total lack of cutting edge.
The writing has been on the wall now for the last few months with the results post- qualification not been good, acknowledging the better quality of opposition.
I also agree this now feels like a major crossroads with a rebuild over the next couple of years inevitable.
Obviously disappointed, but have to accept the natural cycle of sporting fortunes and the fact that the last 6 years have given us an incredible journey which I had never previously thought would happen. Just such a shame to end it in such a half- hearted manner – assuming the Tuesday results don’t miraculously work in our favour!
Thanks both. I think in 2016 we had far more players in DJ’s categories three and four than we do now and I believe it’s fair to say that if you want success, you have to have a good sprinkling of players from those groups. On the other hand, too much of categories one and two and you’re in trouble (that applied to City last season I believe). I think there has been a general agreement that outfield players tend to be at their peak in the late twenties (say twenty seven to thirty) and if you apply that to the current Welsh squad, I would say we only have one player in Ben Davies who is a good quality international player who is of “the right age”. I wouldn’t say that is a hard and fast rule because there are plenty of players in their thirties who are influential in world football and you’ll always get very talented youngsters, but, unfortunately, our very good thirty somethings have all suffered at least one serious injury through their career and this has seemed to contribute to a more rapid decline than you’d normally expect. I also think that DJ has a point when he mentions coaching – it’s a simplistic way of looking at things granted, but look where Osian Roberts is now, it’s hard to imagine Premier League clubs lining up to sign Messes Symons and Knill when they leave their current jobs.
Huw, after watching Costa Rica and one or two others since Wales’ last game, I was wondering how many teams out of the thirty two have we looked better than and the only one I came up with was Qatar – they’re the only team I think we’ve definitely been better than. So, I agree with you – yes, as many feared, it’s looking like one competition too many for our two best players and over important members of the “golden generation” are no longer the players they were, but, even so, we shouldn’t have been as bad as we have been for three out of the four halves of football we’ve played. As DJ says, it seems daft trying to play a high tempo, impatient game in the, almost, midday sun in a place like Qatar, but, even so, too many players are under performing. I mentioned that I though Ampadu had a poor game on Friday, but I find it hard to argue against the view that he’s been our best player so far – that really sums up how low standards have been from Welsh players up to now.
Good morning Paul and everyone – as ever, you and your correspondents have reported accurately and sensibly upon the limitations and failings of the happenings at this World Cup. Our “golden” generation, sadly, is past (just like the oval ball game lot!) but the ride that they took us on was quite thrilling.
Watching teams perform admirably at this competition with players I have never heard of made me realise fairly quickly that “our” game had stagnated to the extent that there is little imagination in our play and if we wish to be considered as a recognised footballing nation, we need to appoint coaches throughout who have the technical nous to apply their knowledge and experience to our youngsters. As you suggest Paul, there may not be a lot of takers for our current staff when they receive their P45s.
I shall sit to-morrow night watching with bucket hat on (and at the age of 84 with photo to confirm) keeping everything crossed that Management accept that serious changes are necessary to the previous selected eleven and produce a younger, more mobile and athletic midfield and some pace out wide on our right flank. If that also means ditching the back five with a back four so be it. Let us give it a good go and produce at least one performance that shows we are worthy to be at football’s top table.
I see your message has appeared on here without me needing to do anything this time BJA – I give up trying to understand this software!
Thanks for your feedback and I’d say your last sentence captures how I feel -no expectation of a win whatsoever, but let’s at least show the world what we’re capable of. Bale and Ramsey have been getting most attention, but there are plenty of others who have just not performed – some players look like they’re short of fitness, while others appear to be a bit overwhelmed by the whole experience.
As for the manager, I had no real problem with him getting an extended contract at the time, but he needs to rescue himself from what will have been an extremely poor tournament if we just come up with more of the same today. His selections, tactics and substitutions have been formulaic and you get the feeling that he may as well just have picked a squad of about eighteen for all of the use he’s made of the all of the resources available to him so far.