Midfielder Lucas Zelrayan would once again be a thorn in Wales’ side as the two nations settled for a draw in Armenia, scoring early in the contest as the hosts ensured a frustrating afternoon for the Red Wall support.
Wales never looked capable of reaching the levels of their dramatic 2-1 victory over World Cup semi-finalists Croatia last month, and would struggle to get a foothold in the game. They salvaged a point thanks to a first-half stoppage time equaliser from a combination of Joe Rodon and home defender Nair Tiknizyan, who sent Connor Roberts’ long throw past home goalkeeper Ognjen Čančarević.
It would be on paper an all too familiar subpar performance against a side sixty places below them in the current world rankings, and a crucial drop of points against Albania for the second time in five months.
Embed from Getty Images‘We’re disappointed, of course, we wanted to get the win,’ said Rob Page in his post-match press conference
‘We didn’t get off to the best start, we knew they were going to throw everything at us.’
‘To go a goal behind after four minutes was really disappointing, but I thought then we took control of the game and grew into the first half. Scored at the perfect time, but the break came at a bad time.’
‘We knew we had the changes in place on the hour mark and we made one a bit earlier, but we couldn’t quite get Brennan [Johnson] into the positions where we knew he causes problems. ‘
‘The positives are now, we want to finish the camp on a high. We’ve got to pick ourselves up and finish with a performance on Tuesday.’
‘We look forward to finishing with momentum and if it’s a play-off in March, then we take that.’
