Coleman happy despite another Wales draw

Chris Coleman hailed the effort of his Wales players despite a fifth consecutive draw in World Cup qualifying at Serbia.

For the fourth time in their Group D campaign, Wales failed to hold on for three points after taking the lead, with Aleksandar Mitrovic – as he was in Cardiff in November – their nemesis with an equaliser following Aaron Ramsey’s penalty.

But Coleman considered this a fine result without star man Gareth Bale, among others, as they kept their World Cup hopes alive.

“It was a great point,” he told Sky Sports. “But we were 1-0 up, they weren’t peppering Wayne Hennessey.

“You expect a tough game here, but we had chances over 90 minutes. You aren’t going to come here and play open football, we did that before and you know what happened. We lost 6-1.

“I can’t fault the players, they worked so so hard. Joe Ledley hasn’t played for three months and he gave me 90 minutes, incredible.

FT 1-1 #SRBWAL #TogetherStronger pic.twitter.com/IEKIjEArZG

— Wales (@FAWales) June 11, 2017

“We’ve been here before, we can’t seal the deal. Last campaign we saw them out, but that’s just where we are at the moment.

“I thought we had the better chances. They had one or two, but, overall, we weren’t standing there biting our nails. “

Wales remain four points behind Serbia, who are tied with Republic of Ireland at the group’s summit.