Gareth Bale: Wales need to learn dark arts ahead of World Cup after conceding late vs Netherlands | Football News

Gareth Bale has called for his Wales team-mates to learn the “dark arts” ahead of the World Cup after Wout Weghorst’s late winner for the Netherlands.

Weghorst ended Wales’ impressive home unbeaten run by scoring a late winner in a dramatic injury-time as Netherlands ran out 2-1 winners in Cardiff.

Wales had levelled moments earlier in the closing stages when Rhys Norrington-Davies headed home equaliser from Connor Roberts’ cross.

However, Wales couldn’t see the game out and allowed Frenkie de Jong to sprint through three Welsh challengers in midfield which set the attack from which Weghorst scored from.

Bale, who played the last 17 minutes off the bench, made reference to that run when analysing the Welsh performance, claiming one of his team-mates should have fouled De Jong.

He told S4C: “It was a difficult game as we didn’t have a full-strength squad but the boys that came in worked hard.

“To get the equaliser and to then concede was gutting but we have to learn the dark arts to take him down. We need to use this as a learning experience. If that happens again in the World Cup, we need to do what we need to do.

“We are in Group A as we deserve to be here and to test ourselves against the world’s best. If you are in the tier below you probably get away with that late chance but when you play the top teams and don’t do the things you need to do you get punished.

“It’s hard to take but we are a young team.”

More to follow…