Wales 2-4 Armenia: Rob Page’s side slump to a shock home defeat in Euro qualifiers

You can celebrate your fantastic fans, rousing songs and hair-raising atmosphere all you want, but none of those things matter if you’re hopeless when the real football starts.

In front of the Red Wall, one of the largest footholds in the world, Wales stole the place with 10 men against lowly Armenia, ranked 97th in the world. Kieffer Moore was ejected late and it was no surprise to hear some boos during full-time.

They missed a great opportunity to take the lead in their qualifying group, with Croatia in the Nations League. Such a poor defensive performance will be rightly punished by Turkey in Samsun on Monday.

Boss Rob Page will speak to his players ahead of the trip today and he admitted: “We had a blow tonight – a reality check – and maybe it’s the blow we need.

‘I didn’t see that coming. It shocked me. They taught us a lesson on how to play the not-so-nice side of the game.”

From the first conversations it had looked like this would become a routine evening. Moore was dominant in the air and had already missed two chances by the time Daniel James put Wales ahead.

At the time, no one had expected Armenia to fight back, but they still led at half-time thanks to goals from Lucas Zelarayan and Grant-Leon Ranos.

19-year-old Ranos learned the trade at Bayern Munich and added his second soon after an hour. Although Harry Wilson halved the deficit soon after, Zelarayan quickly doubled his own score to make it four – shortly after Ranos hit the crossbar.

Wales’ woes were complete when Moore was shown a straight red card for appearing to kick out at goalkeeper Ognjen Chancharevich, whose ridiculous antics sealed Moore’s fate.

Wales arrived here cheerfully with four points from two games. Page deeply praised their strength and said their woe at the World Cup – where Wales did not win a game – is definitely a thing of the past.

But what Wales served up here was as stark as anything they produced in Qatar. They may not have the talent of England, but every member of their starting side has played in one of Europe’s top five leagues.

Their world ranking of 26th is about even and should have been more than enough to send a team 71 places below them. It looked like Armenia would be overwhelmed as Johnson’s low cross from Brennan was returned by James.

But Armenia equalized with a superb volley from Zelarayan in the 19th minute and things got even worse for Wales after half an hour when the unmarked Ranos headed a nimble header past Danny Ward.

Remarkably, things got even worse for Wales after 66 minutes. Chris Mepham failed to see Ranos’ dummy, allowing the striker to take Zelarayan’s pass and blast past Ward.

Wales got one back when Wilson stabbed through Moore’s knockdown. Five minutes later, Moore was sent off for violent conduct before Armenia clinched victory. Joe Morrell was robbed by Ugochukwu Iwu on his goal and he slipped to Zelarayan, who did the rest from 15 yards.