Sky Sports pundit James Collins has blasted Liverpool attacker Harry Wilson for what appeared to be a stamp on Azerbaijan’s Richard Almeida in Wales’ 1-0 win in Cardiff on Friday night.
In the first half, Bournemouth loanee Wilson was lucky to avoid being handed his marching orders after he stood on Almeida’s leg after nudging the Brazil-born Azerbaijani player to the ground.
Ex-West Ham defender Collins could not believe that Wilson was allowed to stay on the pitch.
“It’s been a niggly game, there’s been a few elbows and a few off the ball tackles but for me, you can’t do that at international level in football,” said Collins on Sky Sports Premier League on Friday night [08:38pm].
“Having played in international football, I’ve seen red cards given for a lot less than that.
“I think he can count himself very lucky.
“He says he’s gone for the ball but he knows what he’s doing and again, I think he’s extremely lucky to still be on the pitch.”
OPINION
Wilson should have been sent off, there are no doubts about it. Like Collins says, he knows what he’s tried to do because it wasn’t at a fast-paced moment of the game, the ball was basically dead and Almeida was on the ground. Wilson was over him and could have easily stood anywhere else but looked as though he decided to stand on the Azerbaijan player. It will be interesting to see if UEFA take any kind of retrospective action against Wilson for it because he should really be facing a suspension right now. As for the Welshman’s performance on Friday night, he saw a lot of the action, delivered a lot of crosses into the box and did create some issues for the away side’s defence, but on the whole, he just lacked that killer instinct, a killer ball to help Wales’ attack apply more meaningful pressure than it did.
