His side scraped a 2-1 win over the minnows, but the coach is not particularly concerned by their struggles with the points now secured
Ryan Giggs does not think Wales‘ slender 2-1 win over Azerbaijan is anything to be alarmed about, reminding his critics World Cup finalists Croatia only beat Nikola Jurcevic’s men by the same score.
Wales dominated much of the Euro 2020 qualifier at Cardiff City Stadium on Friday, taking the lead fortuitously in the first half when Gareth Bale’s deflected effort looped into the area and was diverted past the stranded goalkeeper by the oblivious Pavlo Pashayev.
Azerbaijan were back on level terms just before the hour, as Neil Taylor gifted possession to Ramil Sheydaev and he fed Mahir Emreli, who slotted home on the rebound after Wayne Hennessey haplessly fumbled the initial tame effort right back to the forward.
Luckily for Wales, Bale – who was otherwise disappointing – nodded in six minutes from time to secure the win.
Wales fans have been extremely critical of Giggs in recent months, though he looked to calm those concerned by Friday’s performance, highlighting Croatia’s identical result.
“[Bale’s goal] was huge – we needed that win no matter how we got it,” Giggs said. “Obviously we wanted to play well, score lots of goals, but sometimes football is like that.
“You have to show character. The lads worked hard. It’s the same score Croatia beat Azerbaijan by at home, so they’re not an easy team to play against, they’re good on the counter.
“We had no excuses tonight and we haven’t going forward. We need to play better, show the same character, but be better on the ball.”
Wales hero Bale echoed his manager, also claiming that the side only needed to worry about the win no matter how it came about.
“The most important thing is to get the three points, no matter how you do it,” he told UEFA.com.
”At the end of the day if you win 5-0 or 1-0 it’s three points, so we look at the positives and getting the winning mentality back and go on to the next one.”
Despite their dominance, Wales struggled to carve out clear-cut chances and break their visitors down but Giggs insists he knows what went wrong.
“In the first half we just didn’t stick to the plan,” Giggs added. “When we did [stick to the plan], we looked dangerous.
“We created chances, space, but we were in too much of a hurry to get up the pitch instead of making Azerbaijan run.
“When we made them run, moved the ball quickly, that was when the spaces appeared. There were too many players who weren’t on form, but we worked hard, I can never fault the way they worked, the character they’ve shown, because it’s not easy. I’m delighted with the character shown.”
The result leaves Wales third in Group E, three points behind top two Hungary and Croatia.
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