{"id":863767,"date":"2026-04-01T01:25:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/863767\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T01:25:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:25:18","slug":"craig-bellamy-angry-at-wales-first-half-display-in-draw-with-northern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/863767\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Bellamy angry at Wales\u2019 first-half display in draw with Northern Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neither side particularly wanted to be at the Cardiff City Stadium after seeing their World Cup hopes ended in play-off semi-final defeats on Thursday night, and Wales\u2019 week got worse 22 minutes in when Jamie Donley fired Northern Ireland into a deserved lead.<\/p>\n

Isaac Price might have added a second before the break but the visitors\u2019 failure to do so allowed Wales to level it just seconds after the break with a well-taken finish from Sorba Thomas after David Brooks\u2019 shot fell to him inside the box.<\/p>\n

\"SorbaSorba Thomas scored Wales\u2019 equaliser (David Davies\/PA)<\/p>\n

Although his side were much improved in the second half, Bellamy\u2019s frustration with the opening 45 minutes was clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were s*** in the first half,\u201d he said. \u201cSideways, sideways, everything we are not. Do we win duels? No. Against this type of team? It was the first time at half-time I\u2019ve had to go in and really go, \u2018We cannot be that\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get confused about passing the ball and keeping the ball. We love teams that are able to win second balls and win your duels and I have to be honest, this team has always been brilliant at that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to look at if I got them ready enough. I thought I did before it in the messaging in (saying) we can\u2019t waste games. Average teams have excuses. I don\u2019t believe we\u2019re an average team, but our behaviour was and that can\u2019t be right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second half was a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael O\u2019Neill took the positives from his side\u2019s performance as they took the initiative before the break.<\/p>\n

\"NorthernMichael O\u2019Neill praised his Northern Ireland side (Nick Potts\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re pleased to come here and to not lose the game,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought in the first 10 or 15 minutes we had to weather a little bit of a storm, but I thought we grew into the game and then from 15 minutes up to half-time we were probably the better team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we created the better chances on transition in particular and we had other opportunities besides the goal that we scored.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill made three substitutions at the break but unfortunately for goalkeeper Pierce Charles, his first task was to pick the ball out of the net after Thomas struck.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a little bit fortuitous the way the ball deflects into the path of Thomas but that happens in the box and he takes his chance,\u201d O\u2019Neill added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we showed good character because it could have been easy to think the game suddenly runs away from you. We knew that Wales had the potential to bring some of their first-choice players into the game which they did with Brennan Johnson and (Ethan) Ampadu.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I thought we stayed in the game well and the younger players, we asked a huge amount of them but they gave us everything and I think we deserved to take something from the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neither side particularly wanted to be at the Cardiff City Stadium after seeing their World Cup hopes ended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":863768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-863767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116326847483269369","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}