CHRISTIAN 2 BALE .... 0

Giggs defends skipper after he’s upstaged by great Dane

RYAN GIGGS defended his call to make Gareth Bale Wales skipper after the Real Madrid star toiled in last night’s defeat by Denmark.

Christian Eriksen scored twice and Wales never came close to a repeat of their superb display in beating the Republic of Ireland 4-1 on Thursday. With Ashley Williams left out, Bale took the armband in Aarhus and seemed to be trying to do too much, including taking throwins. But boss Giggs said: “Regarding it affecting his performance, no I

FROM BACK PAGE think it did. We have a lot of candidates for the captaincy but I just felt he was the most experienced player and he leads by example.

“Also he’s very vocal in the dressing room, when Gareth speaks, the players – especially the younger ones – listen. There were plenty of candidates like Chris Gunter and Aaron Ramsey but I thought Gareth was best suited for the role.”

Bale scored his 30th Dragons goal against Ireland, but struggled to make an impact last night.

Tottenham’s Eriksen opened the scoring in the 32nd minute and made it 2-0 with a penalty just after the hour following Ethan Ampadu’s handball.

Giggs added: “It’s not easy after the highs of Thursday to get back up again. We took the plaudits then, now we have to answer the questions on a defeat.”