Craig Bellamy: Wales boss on ‘toughest’ week and Canada rematch

This was Bellamy’s first friendly in charge of Wales, and he picked Canada – three places higher than his side in the world rankings – because he wanted to expose his fringe players to a standard they may not have previously encountered.

There were three debuts in Swansea – Ronan Kpakio from the start, midfielders Joel Colwill and Kai Andrews as substitutes – to go with Dylan Lawlor’s impressive first international appearance in Kazakhstan the previous Thursday.

Given Wales’ limited resources, it is essential their player pool is expanded.

But while they were having to turn to their inexperienced players – some from League One clubs – Canada were able to pick a strong line-up with only two enforced changes from their 3-0 win in Romania last Friday.

“I don’t do excuses. I don’t talk about process and this and that. I’m in the here and now, I want to win,” said Bellamy.

“But also it was Charlie Crew’s first start, Ronan Kpakio’s debut, Kai Andrews’ debut, Joel Colwill’s debut, and we had one or two fringe players. It was nice for me to give them the opportunity because they haven’t had that opportunity to play because every game I’ve had there has been points on it.

“I needed to see the squad as well and I needed to see what they picked up with us. Can they play in our way? And I have to be honest, I was very impressed with that.

“But that speed of securing balls and seeing pressure, coming up with the ball, some of our boys have never been exposed to that. The league they’re in, they’re not going to get exposed to that. This is a jump.

“And then you have a captain in Ben Davies, who was incredible. They got a proper example today. You want to see an international footballer? You want to see what the international stage is? Hopefully, this will help them become top players for Wales in the future. But I want them now.”