Rob Page hails Wales' "absolute gem" who can help fill Gareth Bale's void
Get Rob Page on Jordan James and there is only good news.
Smiles abound, as do the ‘JJ’s. It’s an innocuous enough moniker, exalted by the Wales manager’s gravelly Rhondda lilt, but also a reminder that James is still, technically, a kid. And suddenly there you are, awash with something positive: Hope? Faith? Something like security?
That has been the effect of 19-year-old James since his arrival in Wales’ midfield midway through a Euro 2024 qualifying campaign that threatened to internally combust on multiple occasions. In a year in which Wales’ prodigal son, Gareth Bale, retired and Wales slunk to their lowest FIFA ranking in eight years, a talent as close to prodigious without being ostentatious or heralded arrived on the scene to help maintain some semblance of direction. Who can blame Page for feeling a tad giddy?
That is not to place an unfair weight on the shoulders of a teenager with just eight caps to his name. There is something to be said for the influence of Leeds United’s Ethan Ampadu, a player as much indebted with Wales’ midfield recuperation as any. And if it's not Jordan whom Page is speaking about, it's Wales' suddenly vibrant attack.
Brennan Johnson, Harry Wilson, Kieffer Moore, David Brooks and Dan James are not only relishing regular minutes at club level but their performances are teeming with the sort of pre-playoff poise that invariably inspires hope. But Jordan James can feel like the perfect miniature of Wales at present: full of vigour, potential and hunger but still rough and conspicuously lacking superstardom (for now, anyway).
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Page is unflinching as he declares James has the quality to be world-class. Atalanta and a smattering of Premier League clubs were keen on procuring James in January. But Page is equally careful, at pains really, not to be drawn on parallels with former Wales greats.
“I put my faith in him. Not only is he a good footballer but he’s a good lad,” he says. “And if you’re going to succeed out in Europe, if you’re going to have a chance, you’ve got to tick all of the boxes. He ticks the boxes. He has a chance.”
It’s a chance that Wales have too. A Euro 2024 semi-final qualifying play-off against Finland later this month, the winner of whom will face one of Poland or Estonia in a bid to compete in the summer’s European championships in Germany. On being in this position – after being humiliated by Armenia at home before producing one of the most memorable performances of this millennium against Croatia – Page is strikingly honest.
“If someone would’ve said to us after the retirement of Gareth Bale, after the World Cup, we’ll be going into March two wins away from qualifying for a major tournament we would’ve taken it,” he says. “To finish third in that group is probably where they would’ve put us in regards to the standings.”
It’s the sort of statement that the Page-Out brigade will hold up as irrefutable evidence of the former Port Vale boss’ inadequacy for the job. Here is a manager lacking vision and hutzpah, not least given Wales – still armed with Bale – were awarded this backdoor route due to their Nations League ranking and the fact the teams ahead of them qualified the easy way.
How can such a potentially flawed sentiment take Wales to the next level? The reverse, however, could be equally true: How can a manager without this sober perception take Wales to the next level?
Page wants to speak about the upcoming qualifiers, the Nations League draw after that, of which he remains positive he will oversee. It’s a good draw, full of potential, though nothing is as reeling with potential as the upcoming play-offs.
Jordan James has been a revelation in Wales' midfield since his debut last year (Photo by Matthew Ashton - AMA/Getty Images)Even then, there’s a call to reflect. Page still loves the contrast between Wales’ World Cup squad announcement and that of the USA, when the meek sun-stained red bricks of Tylorstown Welfare Hall went up against the hawking metal goliath that is the Empire State Building.
Page doesn’t go to this place in his mind on his own. He has to be brought there, which is fine enough. Despite wearing his heart on his sleeve, he’s rarely nostalgic. The former Wales defender knows the power of the past as much as the danger of residing in it.
Which brings us to the future. Cardiff City Stadium is the place of silly magic and unfulfilled dreams filled. But this was the case with Bale and Aaron Ramsey–out with injury–in its midst. Yet, a squad which felt throughout last year’s campaign to be good but not great, toying with the personality of being a consistent qualifier but unconvincing all the same, suddenly has a bolder shape after January.
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Joe Rodon and Connor Roberts have joined Ampadu and James at Leeds with sensational upshots, Rodon's impressive defensive displays particularly pleasing the former centre-back. Johnson is showing the right signs at Tottenham Hotspur, Brooks looks resurgent with Southampton, Wilson's Fulham displays are suave and absorbing and the Ipswich trio of Kieffer Moore, Nathan Broadhead and Wes Burns are stirring their own potency. Neco Williams was named Nottingham Forest's player of the month for February.
It's a province with which Wales are generally unfamiliar, and of course it's not all roses. Danny Ward remains sitting somewhere in the annals of Leicester City’s training ground.
In fact, no Wales goalkeeper can seem to find minutes. But Page is neither cynical nor romantic about this. In the grand scheme of things, this current crop is undergoing an unlikely evolution at a time Wales looked destined to devolve.
“Life after Gareth Bale, it’s not going to be easy,” he says. “We knew that. He’s such a big player. But when you have players like Jordan [James], Brennan [Johnson], Harry Wilson playing like they are, the squad is looking really good. What pleases me in January is the majority of players have gone out to play games. That means we’re in the healthiest position we’ve been in regards to players playing domestic minutes.”
That Wales’ final match of the Euro 2024 qualifying campaign came against Turkey felt appropriate. In the team’s last meeting at Euro 2020, Ramsey and Bale combined for one of the silkiest tournament victories since 2016. In fact, the triumph remains Wales’ only tournament victory since that ineffable 2016 campaign.
That Wales failed to win a qualifying match since 2005 without one of the pair on the pitch before October 2023 is an absurd fact that speaks to the quality Bale and Ramsey tout, the margins they skew, the marginal width missing when they’re not around.
There, then, is hope. Against Croatia and even the goalless draw against Turkey, the signs were positive from a team which looked happy to not only play for itself but, crucially, its manager.
Wales' midfielder #07 David Brooks reacts at the end of the UEFA Euro 2024 Group D qualifying football match between Wales and Turkey, at Cardiff City Stadium, in Cardiff, on November 21, 2023. Wales equalised with Turkey 1 - 1. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP) (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images) (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)That Page has continued to be the one at the helm during all of this deserves mentioning. For all the vitriol and doubt aimed the Rhondda man’s way, there remains the fact that none was hurled from inside the squad. Davies, alongside Roberts, seemed to tell un-named critics to effectively “zip it” after rumours of Roy Keane ’s potential hiring and discontent from the upper echelons leaked into the mainstream. Davies went one step further and described the Wales squad as a ‘band of brothers’.
Anyone tempted to roll their eyes at the apparent mawkishness is potentially at fault for ignoring the fact this is a squad more than warranted to rebel. What the show of support meant to Page –what it still means – is, largely, indescribable for him.
It’s put to Page, the unlikely-stand-in-made-permanent, that he could be the first Wales manager to lead Wales through two successful qualifying campaigns (the Euro 2020 qualifying campaign had been accomplished under former manager Ryan Giggs) if he succeeds later this month.
“It’s not about me and qualifying. The players have had a taste of it twice now. They want more to qualify for more of those major tournaments,” he says.
If Wales can get past Finland and then Poland, Wales will reach a fourth major tournament in five. It is the kind of footballing consistency that was fanciful years ago but now feels too self-deprecating, effacing even, not to at least demand.
“It’s not black and white. It’s not a given,” Page warns when pressed on the new expectations. “You’ve got to work hard, understandably, because we’ve qualified for the last two major tournaments. But it’s not easy.
"You can’t just turn up and expect to qualify. You’ve got to earn the right to. We lost some big players, we’re introducing some younger players and we’ve found an absolute gem in JJ, and Brennan as well. So the future is bright.”
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