World Cup qualifying match preview v Wales

Leading into tomorrows match against Wales, Guus Hiddink is surely lining up his squad to attack with a ruthless tenacity. With Germany devastation of helpless Liechtenstein 6-0, the gloves are off and the race towards the top of Group Four might be decided by goal difference. All this makes for a challenging affair for Wales, road weary, bloodied and ripe for a all-out attack.

Wales head into Lokomotiv Stadium with extensive injuries and a surprise deletion of Paul Perry, who was expected to start at striker, retiring yesterday. Couple that with Wigan’s Jason Koumas aggravating his injury in the less-than convincing 1-0 victory over Azerbaijan on Saturday, Wales will effectively be playing with a paired-down roster of U-21 squad and secondary choices. Respectfully, Wales manager John Toshack is heading into Moscow with an extraordinary test, gain a point with a squad made up of teenagers.

Per the BBC, John Toshack reaffirmed beliefs that Wales will play a single striker and look to padlock the affair and play to a draw:

”We won’t play with two strikers, that’s for sure. It will not be the same team, there will be different people in the side for this one.

”But we feel a lot better about the trip now we have three points from Saturday’s win over Azerbaijan. We will try to play as well as we did in the last Euro 2008 qualifier in Frankfurt when we got a fully-deserved 0-0 draw.”

”We know we must try to get something from tough opposition. The aim, somehow by hook or by crook, is to qualify.

”It will be the Russians’ first game in this group and we know how good they are. We saw their strengths in the European Championships, but we go into the game in a good frame of mind and I will want a performance similar to the one we produced in Frankfurt.

”We will want to give a good performance and do our very best to get a good result.

”It will be a tough game but it will tell us a lot more about some of our younger players.”

Guus Hiddink’s squad head into the match in a particular rested state and are strong favourites. Since returning from the Euro’s the Rosgosstrakh Football Championship has been in overdrive, with some clubs playing eight to ten matches in the first month or so back. Effectively this means that Russia is in a perfect position to devastate Wales and will look to attack endlessly. This match up will contrast radically different styles as Russia’s flourishing attack of Pavel Pogrebnyak, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Andrei Arshavin will be pushed forward in the attack by Konstantin Zyryanov, Vladimir Bystrov and Igor Semshov, offset against a much tighter and slower structure of Wales, necessitated by injury.

I will report on the match once it concludes.

Given many fans do not have access to this match, I am presently looking into a live blog. If this interests you please comment and I will update.

***update*** the match will be live blogged at 4 pm BST.