Home loss to team ranked 97th in the world adds to poor run of form making Monday’s game in Turkey feel make-or-breakThe inquest into Wales’s humbling by Armenia began in earnest on Saturday morning, a few hours before an afternoon flight to Samsun, the Turkish city on the Black Sea where suddenly it all feels rather make or break when it comes to qualifying for Euro 2024.The grave mood in the stands at full time in Cardiff, as the remnants of a sold-out crowd wondered whether they had inadvertently been teleported back to the bruising days when Wales were nestled below Guatemala and Guyana in the Fifa rankings, married with what is now a bleak forecast. Continue reading...
Montenegro and Serbia’s historic meeting, unhappy memories for England and the Republic of Ireland, and Georgi Petkov’s international return – at 42Twelve years after Montenegro achieved independence and 11 years after they were formally recognised by Fifa, they meet Serbia for the first time. The match is, according to goalkeeper Danijel Petkovic, the biggest in the nation’s history. After two games the teams are level on points at the top of Group C4, adding competitive edge to an already spicy encounter. Serbia are far from full strength: Crystal Palace’s Luka Milivojevic is one of several players to have dropped out of the squad since the World Cup after falling out with the manager, Mladen Krstajic, while the captain, Nemanja Matic,...
Armenia’s captain had not started a league game in almost three months but his performance against Everton shows he deserves more first-team actionDespite performing against Feyenoord and West Ham United, this was the big audition Henrikh Mkhitaryan dare not fluff. Not after what happened in his previous and only Premier League start for Manchester United. Then, José Mourinho named Armenia’s captain in the XI for the derby on 10 September and with Manchester City leading 2-1 at half‑time the manager substituted him and failed to provide him with even an appearance from the bench in the ensuing nine league matches.Those starts against Feyenoord and West Ham were in the Europa League and EFL Cup respectively, and given the way Mkhitaryan...