Wales crave momentum but, a few days after surely the sweetest high of Craig Bellamy’s two-year reign, a sapping international window ended on a bum note. At least until Bellamy was informed Portugal’s comeback victory over Norway means Wales will spend the next six weeks in third, and not bottom of Nations League A4 owing to their superior head-to-record. The galling thing for Ward was that until his moment of madness, he had kept his country in the game, his best stop a sublime right-hand save to deny Gustav Isaksen.
A first clean sheet since beating Liechtenstein last November also went out of the window for Wales. The life of a goalkeeper, eh? The difficulty for Wales was always going to be trying to replicate the all-action performance from their triumph over Norway, the obvious caveat that their opponents played almost all of the second half with 10 men.
The emotions felt after that game were always going to be hard to match but despite the awkward 7.45pm kick-off on a Sunday night, the Barry Horns, the brass brand who enthusiastically soundtrack Wales matches, made a racket and contributed to a fine atmosphere. Even without a full house, the anthem was stirring if not spine-tingling. Bellamy said it was impossible to keep the same XI owing to the toll of four matches across 11 days but in the end Daniel James was the only player to make way, Brennan Johnson taking his place on the wing.
Ben Davies, whose only minutes for Tottenham came against a Charlton Athletic B team in the Carabao Cup, started a fourth successive game this window, together with Neco Williams and Ethan Ampadu, whose Leeds team visit Arsenal in Saturday’s early kick-off when the Premier League resumes. Ward also made it four in a row and in doing so has played four times as many games for his country as he has this season for his club, Wrexham. It is a familiar problem for Wales and Bellamy, who is hopeful Joe Rodon will return from a hamstring injury in time for next month’s trip to Oslo and home date with Portugal.
I felt it in the first half: we’re not moving enough now. We tried to make one or two substitutions to freshen it up. We shouldn’t really have played Ben – I’m just hoping he’s not injured but he’s a warrior.
We don’t have enough players playing week in, week out, certainly not at the top level. When you don’t do this week in, week out, it’s a shock to the system. It was a touch of reality.” Ward’s first real save, to deny Højlund at the start of the second half, was smart but his second was phenomenal.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
