Wales draw in Armenia in blow to Euro 24 hopes

Wales' hopes of qualifying automatically for Euro 24 suffered a potentially critical blow as they were held to a 1-1 draw in their penultimate Group D match against Armenia on Saturday.

Robert Page's side have recovered from a poor start to their qualifying campaign to reach a position where a win in Yerevan and at home to Turkey on Tuesday would have sent them to their fourth major tournament out of the last five -- but their fate is now out of their hands.

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From the moment Armenia's Lucas Zelarayan cut in and fired a shot into the bottom corner after five minutes, the Welsh never managed to exert any sort of control. 

They enjoyed a huge stroke of luck in first-half stoppage time when a long throw-in by Connor Roberts went in off the head of Armenia's Nair Tiknizyan.

It failed to inspire a second-half surge though, and it was Armenia, who knew a win could keep alive their qualification hopes, who were the more likely winners.

Vahan Bichakhchyan was denied by the crossbar and Edgar Sevikyk had a chance saved in stoppage-time.

Wales too had chances, with Ethan Ampadu having a header saved, but they did not do enough to warrant the three points.

Armenia, who have eight points, looked crestfallen at the final whistle as their Euro 2024 hopes were ended -- paying the price for a defeat by bottom-placed Latvia in October.

Ampadu said all Wales can do now is beat Turkey and hope for a favour elsewhere.

"We are always good at bouncing back and on Tuesday we need to control what we can control and get the result we need, and maybe we will get a little bit of luck along the way," he told BBC Wales.

Wales needed to beat Armenia and Turkey next week to guarantee qualification, having entered the weekend level on points but with the head-to-head advantage over Croatia. They have 11 points from seven games, five behind group leaders Turkey, but Croatia will go into second place if they beat Latvia later on Saturday.

Croatia then play Armenia in their final group match.