South Wales Echo

Wales made a bad impression – Jordan

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ENGLISH pundits on radio station talkSPORT have revelled in Wales’ loss to Iran in the World Cup, with Simon Jordan even taking a swipe at First Minister Mark Drakeford.

Wales were poor in their second group game and deservedly fell to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of the Iranians, which all but spells the end of their tournament barring a minor miracle by virtue of other results going their way and a win against arch-rivals England on Tuesday.

During the fallout from the match, pundits Simon Jordan and Gabby Agbonlahor took aim at the Welsh, with the former still having a gripe about Wales’ reaction to Iceland beating England during Euro 2016, six years ago.

“Why would I care more about Wales than I would care about any other side?” Jordan said on talkSPORT.

“The Welsh sat there and had a little sing-song when we got knocked out by Iceland (in Euro 2016). Everything that goes around comes around. It’s a matter of fact.

“And the quicker we can get rid of that virtue-signalling nitwit Mark Drakeford back to Wales, the happier I’ll be!”

Jim White, the presenter, attempted to steer the anti-Welsh sentiment back to a position of neutrality, even suggesting that the comments might stem from “English arrogance”.

However, Jordan hit back by saying: “We can get into this Celtic nonsense, or we can get into the sentiment being trumped by fact.

“The bottom line is Wales came to this tournament to make an impression. They have made an impression, it’s a bad one. See you at home.”

He later added: “In all fairness, I think the Welsh are slightly better than the performanc­e they put on today.

“I don’t know why they didn’t change. You could see the game was getting away from them.

“You could see that everything was in transition. I don’t know why they didn’t just go from back to front quicker with Kieffer Moore, play off him and get higher up the pitch. But they didn’t.”

Former Aston Villa and England striker Agbonlahor, who never played in a World Cup, appeared to have a bee in his bonnet about comments made by Bournemout­h striker Kieffer Moore, who said it would “be amazing” to knock the English out of the tournament.

Having Moore in his crosshairs, Agbonlahor waded in with: “How can you have players, before the tournament, like Kieffer Moore saying ‘I can’t wait to knock England out’?

“Sorba Thomas said, ‘We don’t fear England.

“Why can’t we be the ones to knock them out?’

“Players shouldn’t talk like that before the tournament and now they’ve got their medicine and England will give them a good beating next week and they’ll be out.”

He added: “Wales didn’t turn up. Kieffer Moore didn’t turn up. But he likes to speak about how he wants to knock England out, then doesn’t show it on the pitch.

“Gareth Bale was poor again today.

“He didn’t turn up. Him and [Aaron] Ramsey were both... they didn’t even get on the ball or take anyone on.

“Poor from Wales and all the best trying to get a result against that England squad of players.”

Finally, Agbonlahor delivered his parting shot.

“What they showed in the second half against the USA was promising,” he said.

“They are out now. And to go out like this is shameful.”

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