When Craig Bellamy talks, you listen. He can command a touchline, a dressing room, the deepest of auditoriums, a gaggle of journalists in a bunker of Laugardalsvöllur stadium. Presumably one of the reasons Wales’s players so quickly bought into his ideas is that he is such a compelling orator and, consequently, he is easy to believe.
So when he was at pains to amplify the pluses of throwing away a two-goal lead in Reykjavík on Friday, it was hard not to take him at face value. In fairness, the positives were there: Bellamy is the first Wales manager to avoid defeat in his first three competitive matches and unbeaten at the halfway stage of the Nations League.
The other discernible difference since Bellamy took charge in the summer has been the mood among supporters, excited to follow Project Bellamy. The 45-year-old was being modest when he acknowledged September’s games against Turkey and Montenegro “got one or two more people interested”.
Wales have begun with vim in every game under Bellamy, with more early goals in Iceland after two in the first three minutes in Montenegro, whom they host on Monday. In his first game Turkey seemed startled by Wales’s swarming, blood-pumping nature, Bellamy’s side determined to commit numbers and ambush the opposition at every opportunity. “Every part of what we do is to score,” Bellamy said. “When our goalkeeper has the ball: how quick can we get to their goal?”
Bellamy told how his excitement for the job increased this month after being reunited with his squad at the Vale Resort on the outskirts of Cardiff. Wales are fun and there is a freshness to the plan, an adventure and a licence to thrill, but it is not without its flaws. The first-half display in Iceland was dynamic, the second a reminder to temper expectations.
“We’ve scored four goals away from home [under Bellamy] and that’s what we’re about,” said the striker Kieffer Moore. “We’re a high-press, high-attacking team and when we do get those chances in that style of play it’s exciting. It gets people on their feet but sometimes it can work against you as well.”
Wales badly faded, Oli Cooper’s shot the only vaguely memorable action inside the Iceland half after the interval. Towards the end it was fraught; Ben Cabango did well to prevent an incisive pass reaching Andri Gudjohnsen as Iceland sought a winner and in stoppage time the goalkeeper Danny Ward was booked for time-wasting.
Perhaps the lack of mileage in the legs of players at club level this season was a factor; only Tottenham’s Brennan Johnson, who scored his seventh goal in his past seven games, is a regular in the top flight.
Harry Wilson and Neco Williams, Wales’s best performers on the night, are bit-part players for Fulham and Nottingham Forest respectively. Ben Davies, captain in the absence of Aaron Ramsey, is yet to play a minute for Spurs in the Premier League this season. Bellamy is encountering familiar hurdles.
Bellamy said a light-hearted exchange with Jóhann Berg Gudmundsson, the Iceland captain with whom Bellamy worked while assistant to Vincent Kompany at Burnley, served to confirm the details of why the game slipped from Wales’s grasp. Wales’s tired second-half submissions have proved an unwanted theme in this Bellamy era.
“Even when he’s moaning, I love him,” Bellamy said. “He was having a pop at me about what he did in the second half, how he completely changed the game. He took a lot of pride in telling me the solution at the end of the game … but he was right.”
Iceland, as Bellamy pointed out, are a capable side with a handful of talented youngsters, including the 20-year-old Orri Óskarsson, who joined Real Sociedad from Copenhagen for €20m in the summer. Åge Hareide’s side fell at the final hurdle to qualify for Euro 2024, losing to Ukraine in the playoffs, but beat England at Wembley in June.
Regardless, Wales, as Lord Sugar would say, completely lost control of the task. Bellamy is hardly an apprentice but these remain early days. In some ways, that is the really exciting bit.
