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Gemma Grainger Insists Wales Are Not Firing Blanks As Denmark Become The Target

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By Hannah Blackwell

Gemma Grainger insists she will send her Wales team out against Denmark on Tuesday night, convinced they can score the goals for success in the Women’s Nations League.

Wales lost 1-0 in their opening fixture of the tournament away in Iceland last week, a failure in front of goal that has become a recurring theme against higher-ranked opposition.

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But the Wales manager has backed her team to deliver at the Cardiff City Stadium against the Danes, who showed their quality with a 2-0 victory over Germany in their opening match of the competition.

“For me, when you create chances against higher ranked opposition, that’s the aim to start with,” said Grainger.

“You’re not going to create 10, 15, 20 chances against the best teams. We had eight against Iceland and it doesn’t worry me at all.

“I’d be more worried if we weren’t creating them. For me, it’s the finer details that we’ve got to train at and speak about in meetings.
“We’ve got incredible attacking players and if they keep making those runs, they’ll get chances and finish them.

“It’s the first time for us, in this phase of our development, that we’ve been that dominant especially against such higher ranked opposition.

“It’s one of the best performances we’ve had. We’ve pushed a team in to a low block and we’ve done that against Kazakhstan and Estonia, but to actually do that against a higher ranked team is a sign of our style and our in-possession dominance.

“That is something we’ve really wanted to put on teams because we know that style will help us create chances and ultimately qualify.”

Wales were beaten last week when Iceland captain Glódís Viggósdóttir headed in after a short corner in the 18th minute to ensure they began with a win in a meeting of two teams who both missed out on a first World Cup in play-off extra time late last year.

Denmark, however, made a superb start under new coach Andrée Jeglertz with two Amalie Vangsgaard goals giving them victory against Germany, who have Britta Carlson in temporary charge due to Martina Voss-Tecklenburg’s illness.

The opener was supplied by Pernille Harder and Vangsgaard took advantage of a defensive mix-up for the second.

Grainger went to the World Cup in Australia this summer and says she was impressed by the Danes.

“I was impressed with Denmark. They have a new manager (Andree Jeglertz) and his style of play is similar to the brand he had at club level.

“I looked at the Denmark-Germany game and the goals that were scored. They were controversial in terms of one of them being maybe offside and maybe one of them being a foul.

“You see the score 2-0, but when you watch the game and look at the details, both teams played well and Germany could have won that game 2-0.

“I’m really happy to be in League A because what we wanted to do as a team off the back of the Iceland game was review a game at the highest level to help us qualify for a Euros.

“If we were in League B we’d probably be doing less of that. So the challenge for us now is to perform against Denmark, get the result and the performance, but take all that learning to move forward.”

Wales will be without Birmingham City midfielder Charlie Estcourt on Tuesday due to injury, with her place in the squad being filled by Chloe Williams of Blackburn Rovers.

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