England Team Strength Called 'Ridiculous' - Wales Manager Craig Bellamy

• Published 1 hour ago

International friendly: Wales vs England

Venue: London's Wembley, the capital Date: Thursday, 9 October Kick-off: 19:45 BST

The Wales head coach states England's player pool is so impressive that a boxing promoter would not pair them against his Wales side.

The Welsh squad meet their neighbors in a non-competitive match at Wembley on this Thursday before their important World Cup qualifier against Belgium next Monday.

England manager Thomas Tuchel has omitted the such as Bellingham, Foden and Grealish from his selection for the match against Wales and their qualifying game against the Latvian team.

"England have a ridiculous team, similar to France," Bellamy said.

"England have a market valuation of 1.4 billion pounds, ours is 170 million. If you were a fight promoter, you wouldn't put us together. It wouldn't be allowed."

Bellamy says ensuring the Welsh team can compete with the star-studded opponents is a "key motivation".

Bellamy added: "We don't go off values, but the simple fact is they have more than one team. They possess two, three, four and the French and others are similarly stacked. They have loads of great players and that's the honest truth."

"A defender went out with injury the other day and there are 24 more to go! They have 60-odd footballers. I'd love us to be well-equipped like them."

The neighbouring countries last faced each other at the 2022 World Cup in the Middle East, when the English emerged as easy 3-0 winners in a fixture before Gareth Southgate's side reached the quarter-finals.

Southgate's successor is Tuchel, a European and Fifa Club World Cup champion at Chelsea who has won league championships in France and his home country.

The Welsh boss was previously an assistant at the Belgian side and Burnley to Kompany, who succeeded Tuchel at Bayern Munich.

"Tuchel's an incredible manager - his achievements is proven," Bellamy added.

"I possess a degree of understanding because the club he left I know people who have joined. I gain a glimpse there of his methods and it's remarkable. "

"His strategic planning is top level and I aimed to be facing such a challenge - observe how you're going to adapt because he will. I will get to learn from that. I aspire to get to such heights."

Goalkeepers: Darlow (Leeds United), Adam Davies (Sheffield Utd), King (the Toffees).

Backline: Ben Cabango (Swansea City), Jay Dasilva (Coventry City), Ben Davies (Spurs), Ronan Kpakio (Cardiff), Dylan Lawlor (Cardiff City), Chris Mepham (West Brom), Rodon (Leeds), Williams (Nottingham Forest).

Midfield: Ethan Ampadu (Leeds United), David Brooks (Bournemouth), J. James (Leicester City - loaned by Stade Rennais), Josh Sheehan (Bolton), Thomas (Stoke), H. Wilson (Fulham), J. Colwill (Cardiff), R. Colwill (Cardiff).

Attackers: Nathan Broadhead (Wrexham), Liam Cullen (Swansea), Mark Harris (Oxford), Koumas (Birmingham City - loaned by the Reds), Johnson (Tottenham Hotspur), Kieffer Moore (Wrexham), Isaak Davies (Cardiff).