On the night Jordan James’ second half winner proved to be enough to crawl to victory against the team ranked 206 in the World in an uninspiring nervy showing.
Although home goalkeeper Benjamin Buchel was kept busy, Wales desperately lacked inspiration.
After seeing Nathan Broadhead’s first half finish chalked off for offside, their frustrations grew as Daniel James’ volley hit a post after the interval.
But after an hour into the game, Wales finally made their domination of possession count as a slick move involving Neco Williams and Daniel James saw namesake Jordan finish from close range.
Wales failed to go on to add to the advantage and were even nearly shocked late with Liechtenstein coming close to an equaliser in stoppage time, but they would be spared the embarrassment as veteran defender Sandro Wolfinger would volley wide.
With things evenly poised in Group J, Wales now know only victory against Macedonia on Tuesday night will earn them second place in the group and a home play-off tie.
That will be against one of Czech Republic, Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Anything less will mean a third-place finish and a backdoor route into the World Cup via tricky trip away to the likes of Italy, Poland, Turkey or Ukraine, courtesy of Wales’ exploits in the Nations League.
Assistant coach Cremers, standing in for head coach Craig Bellamy who was serving a one match touch line suspension, felt that the demand of expectation of a comfortable victory added to the pressure.
“That’s what everyone expects [a comfortable win] and that’s the demands that we put on ourselves as well,” said Cremers post-match.
“I thought you could see that with the players; they really wanted to give the fans some more goals.
“It’s the hardest thing in football and something we keep working on. When we play the type of opposition we play today, we want to be more dominant in the scoreline
“I thought in the first-half we had some good moments, but it was that little final bit that was missing to turn it into goals.
“We did that a lot better in the second half where we went through a spell where we created quite a few opportunities after each other, hit the post and created some dangerous moments.
“But you know if you don’t finish or score that second goal, and really score that third, fourth, it becomes a tricky game. We had that a little in moments.
“We will review the game and see if we can do better in those moments.”
If Wales are to get a result in the Cardiff City Stadium on Tuesday night against North Macedonia, two players who they will have to do with will be key midfield duo Ethan Ampadu and Jordan James. Both picked up yellow cards in Laduz and will now serve a one match suspension.
“It’s a shame that we have lost two players with a yellow card, but that is the reality.” continued Cremers.
“We have a good squad and have had moments before where we have had suspensions and players through injury. We will make sure we adapt.
“Look, it’s important that we won, and now we move on to North Macedonia, where we will look at the threats and weaknesses and which players can fill in, and we will go from there.”
[Lead image: Football Association of Wales]
