Every decision feels like a big one in a major championship finals, and more so as one starts to reach the business end. Chris Coleman, universally lauded for his work with Wales at Euro 2016 - and deservedly so - has a biggie on his plate ahead of Wednesday’s semi-final. If the shape of and personnel included in Portugal’s midfield has been Fernando Santos’ main area of concern during the tournament, then few semi-final tasks are more daunting than replacing Aaron Ramsey at the heart of the Welsh side.
He knew straight away, pulling his jersey over his face with anguish. That moment in the 72nd minute of the win over Belgium, just after Ramsey received the yellow card which rules him out of the match in Lyon via suspension, has the potential to be one of the iconic images of the summer. Coleman will hope not. Yet if Gareth Bale is the competition’s outstanding player thus far, rating an average of 8.41, then make no mistake, the loss of Ramsey hurts.
The 25-year-old’s performances for Arsenal in the past season were solid enough - five goals and four assists in 29 Premier League starts, while providing 1.2 key passes per match, for an average rating of 7.21 - but in France he has stepped up from having the potential to be one of the best players in the competition he’s playing in, to actually being one of the best players in the competition he’s playing in.
Ramsey’s numbers in the first five games of Euro 2016 are one goal and four assists - only Belgium’s Eden Hazard has laid on as many goals - for a mean rating of 7.70. He’s also pulled out three key passes per game. In that stirring quarter-final display against Belgium, he rated 8.51, providing two assists and six key passes.
It’s not just Ramsey’s supreme technical ability that will be missed, but his movement. The way he drifted into space to create Hal Robson-Kanu’s crucial goal against Marc Wilmots’ side was as notable as the subsequent pass. It was also, incidentally, the second time he had created a goal for the out-of-contract Reading striker from such an area, after doing likewise in the opener against Slovakia. Indeed, the Ramsey to Robson-Kanu assist to goalscorer combination is the joint best at Euro 2016.
Looking at WhoScored’s player average position map from the Belgium game, we can see that Ramsey generally operated in a position even in advance of Bale, just behind Robson-Kanu and making the link between the two fairly logical. So it’s clear just how much Ramsey offers in terms of supply.
We’ll never know whether he would have been just as effective against Portugal, but this column’s view is that would not necessarily have been the case. Another telling yellow card, picked up by William Carvalho just before the end of normal time against Poland in the first quarter-final, means that the Sporting holder can’t play in the semi either, and will be replaced by Porto’s Danilo, who had started the competition in the sentinel role.
Even if William had been available, there would have been a good argument for choosing Danilo instead to directly combat Ramsey. Danilo is much more of a third centre-back in practice than William, dropping deep when the full-backs push on, which makes sense when you consider that he played a sizeable part of his first campaign at the Dragão as a centre-half. Then-coach José Peseiro saw Danilo as a first-choice piece of the defence in the home stretch of the season, even when he had all his specialist defenders available.
These natural characteristics are clear when we examine William and Danilo in action during the European Championship. Comparing the player average position maps from the opener against Iceland where Danilo started, and the game with Poland, where William did, we can see the former takes up more advanced positions, with Danilo hanging back closer to the centre-back pairing - something especially conspicuous against Iceland, who spent most of the game on the back foot.
So if there was any game in which Danilo was going to come out further, it would have been this one. Against Wales, when Santos will surely be ultra-aware of getting caught by the pace of Bale, Portugal were always likely to be cautious. Ramsey would have been likely to receive one-to-one attention from Danilo, a man very suited to the job, rather than the situation with Belgium, who lack what you might term an orthodox midfield anchor.
With Ramsey’s ban, they don’t have to think about falling into this trap. Instead, they’ll focus on the link between Bale and Robson-Kanu. Despite Ramsey’s contribution against the Belgians, Bale was still the WhoScored star man, rating 8.74. Perhaps Bale’s most interesting number in that game, however, was his five aerial duels won.
How Portugal choose to play Bale will be one of the keys to the match, but this makes it clear that he offers a two-way threat; potentially providing flicks for Robson-Kanu, and using his pace to gather momentum from deep. In that sense, who numerically replaces Ramsey - be it Premier League title winner Andy King or young Jonathan Williams - isn’t that important.
What it should do is encourage a directness to Wales’ play that has been shown to unsettle Portugal throughout this tournament. In the final group match against Hungary, where they have looked most vulnerable, they conceded three goals from set-pieces, which is good news for Bale and Ashley Williams. Going back to where it all started against Iceland, Portugal really struggled with the direct approach of straight balls or crosses into the box. Iceland barely had a foothold for much of the game, but landed all of their four efforts at goal on target from just 28% of possession. They could have snatched it, too.
By returning Portugal to the situation in which they began the Euro - a possession-heavy role, with the onus on them to attack and create - Wales can make Portugal uncomfortable. It’s already clear that Coleman’s team have the nous to take advantage of any uncertainty.
How will Wales perform against Portugal in Aaron Ramsey's absence? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
