Midfielder Lucas Zelrayan would once again be a thorn in Wales side scoring early in the contest as the Eastern Europeans shared the spoils on a frustrating afternoon for the Red Wall support.
Wales never reached the levels of their dramatic 2-1 victory over World Cup semi-finalists Croatia last month and would struggle to get a foothold in a game shared largely thanks to a first-half stoppage time equaliser from a combination of Joe Rodon and home defender Nair Tiknizyan sending Connor Roberts’ long through past home goalkeeper Ognjen Čančarević.
Danny Ward saved Welsh blushes late in the game tipping Edgar Sevikyan effort around the post from close range minutes after Vahan Bichakchyan had crashed an effort against the woodwork.
It would be on paper an all too familiar below par performance against a side 60 places below them in the current World rankings and a crucial drop of points against the Eastern Europeans for the second time in five months.
“We’re disappointed, of course, we wanted to get the win,” said Page.
“We didn’t get off to the best start, we knew they were going to throw everything at us.
“To go a goal behind after four minutes was really disappointing, but I thought then we took control of the game and grew into the first half. Scored at the perfect time, but the break came at a bad time.
“We knew we had the changes in place on the hour mark and we made one a bit earlier, but we couldn’t quite get Brennan [Johnson] into the positions where we knew he causes problems.
“The positives are now; we want to finish the camp on a high. We’ve got to pick ourselves up and finish with a performance on Tuesday.
“We look forward to finishing with momentum and if it’s a play-off in March, then we take that.”
[Lead image: Football Association of Wales]
