It would have been a real injustice if Wales had come out of the three Nations League games they’ve played in the last ten days without a point. They were unlucky to lose in Poland in a match where what was a virtual reserve eleven were the better side for long periods of the game. Against the Netherlands, it was more the manner in which they lost than bad luck – for me, the better team won, but it was cruel to lose out on a point after Wales had equalised in the ninety second minute.
Tonight, in a game which really emphasised how far Wales have come in terms of squad depth from even the glory days of 2016, they trailed by a single goal to Belgium, the team we seem destined to be playing in the group stages of any competition we enter, going into the last fifteen minutes or so and, having had to replace hamstring injury victim Joe Allen with Aaron Ramsey in the first half and introduced Rhys Norrington-Davies for Conor Roberts around the hour mark, they made a triple substitution as Gareth Bale, Ben Davies and Harry Wilson were all taken off.
With Wales already missing Keiffer Moore with a back injury, Bale and Wilson coming off looked a bit strange considering we were losing and that it was Brennan Johnson and Rubin Colwill, with their combined age of forty one, who replaced them along Wes Burns of League One side Ipswich.
Now Johnson is a very sought after performer who will be an important player for Nottingham Forest in the Premier League next season, assuming he doesn’t move to a bigger club in the transfer window, and City fans know that Colwill is a talented lad who could go far in the game, but were they really the sort of players, along with Burns who had only made his Welsh debut in the match in Poland, who could launch a revival against the team that has been ranked number one in the world for so much of the last few years (currently, they’re second behind Brazil)?
Well, yes they were actually, because Wales, who had played their part in making the match such an enjoyable watch, as encounters between these teams invariably are, raised their game to dominate the closing stages to the extent that it felt like a goal was coming by the time Colwill and Neco Williams combined well and the latter fed Ramsey in what looked to be a promising position. if it wasn’t for the fact that the pass was a little bit too much in front of the man who was wearing the captain’s armband.
However, Ramsey then produced a lunge for the ball which immediately brought it under control and then a couple of brilliant touches which sent the ball into the unmarked Johnson’s path and he calmly dispatched it beyond goalkeeper Casteels and into the net.
Besides all of the brouhaha about Bale signing for City, there has been some speculation that Ramsey might as well if, as is being reported, Juventus were to rip up his contract. Now, I often say that Ramsey is my favourite current player, but, such has been his recent injury record, I’ve had reservations about such a move, but, leaving aside tonight’s nominee for best ever Wales assist, any Championship side would be mad to turn down the chance of having him represent them – Ramsey was also instrumental in the Welsh fight back and, having played about an hour all told, was going as strongly in his last minute as he was in his first.
Anyway, back to the goal. If you support a Football League club then you can celebrate as soon as the ball hits the net while also taking a quick glance to ensure that, first, the ref is not blowing his whistle for a foul and, second, the linesman doesn’t have his flag up. Unfortunately, it’s not that straightforward when there’s VAR involved as Wales fans learned twice tonight – first when Ethan Ampadu smashed a great shot into the top corner in the fourth minute, only for it to be ruled out by VAR because Joe Rodon had strayed about a foot offside and then with Johnson’s equaliser that quick look to the linesman I mentioned would have seen him with his flag up. This time though, the adjudication worked in Wales’ favour as the decision was overturned with replays showing that Johnson was millimetres onside – I can’t see how it constituted a “clear and obvious” error by the official though, not, for that matter, did Rodon’s offside, but it seems we’ve moved on from the initial interpretation of when VAR should be used..
Thankfully, there was no repeat of last Wednesday when the Dutch found a winner to follow up our very late equaliser, so, I think it is now just the one win for the Belgians in their past six competitive matches against us.
Belgium, missing Romelu Lukaku and Thibaut Courtois but otherwise at full strength it seemed to me, had a good middle third of the game when they were the better side and Wayne Hennessey was called on to repeat his heroics of last Sunday at times, but he was powerless to stop what I thought was a brilliant goal five minutes into the second half when a bout of one and two touch passing involving five or six players was ended by Youri Tielemans rolling a perfectly placed shot into the net from twenty yards.
It seemed to me that, apart from one moment, it was a goal where you couldn’t criticise anyone in the side that conceded because everything was done so well, but Williams did have an opportunity, lasting no more than a second or two to put the ball back up the pitch or out for a throw in and he was unable to do so..
Belgium must hate playing us because we tend to find a way to stop them winning and this draw, rather like the one against them in November which secured second place for us in our World Cup qualifying group, saw Wales taking the game to their illustrious opponents in a manner which I don’t think we would have seen from a Chris Coleman side – Robert Page deserves particular credit for turning us into a more attacking team in the last year or so.
Before the senior side started their game, Wales under 21’s were in action against the Netherlands at Park Y Scarlets, Llanelli where they were beaten by an eighty’s sixth minute goal to nil – Eli King was the only City player involved, playing the full ninety minutes of a match which saw Wales have two goal attempts to their visitors twenty one. It was a defeat as well for the under 18s who followed up their creditable win over hosts Croatia in a mini tournament also involving Austria and England by losing 2-0 to the latter on Friday – I have no details of the team, so cannot say if the four City players who featured against the Croats were involved at all.
