Danny Ward: Leicester City player can be a top keeper, says Wales coach Tony Roberts
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World Cup the ultimate goal says Wales goalkeeping coach Roberts
How a goalkeeper of Danny Ward's quality can spend so little time playing football was one of the questions of Wales' summer.
Ward excelled at Euro 2020, producing a string of impressive displays to help Wales get out of a difficult group.
Yet after his spell in the European Championship limelight, Ward is back in his all too familiar position in the shadows at Leicester City, where he is understudy to Kasper Schmeichel.
For Wales goalkeeping coach Tony Roberts - who does the same job for Wolverhampton Wanderers - it is frustrating, if understandable, to see Ward sitting on Leicester's bench.
"I spoke to Brendan [Rodgers] after the game [between Leicester and Wolves on 14 August] and said to him 'any danger of getting Danny a game?'," Roberts says with a smile.
"That's just being selfish. Wardy is competing with one of the best goalkeepers in Europe in Schmeichel. He has been so consistent - he never gets injured, he plays every week and plays really well.
"Brendan Rodgers has got to be the happiest manager in the league looking at his goalkeepers because he has got two, in my view, world-class goalkeepers."
Danny Ward was one of Wales' star performers at Euro 2020 having been picked ahead of Wayne Hennessey
Ward shone at the European Championship despite coming into the tournament on the back of a season which saw him make just three club appearances, all of which were in cup competitions.
Remarkably, he has not played a league game since 2016-17, when he was on loan at Huddersfield from former club Liverpool.
He joined Leicester for £12.5m in 2018 but has played just 14 times for the Foxes.
"Wardy has the potential to be a top, top keeper but he needs to play week in, week out. Unfortunately at the moment he is not in that position," Roberts tells BBC Sport Wales.
"You can see how good a goalkeeper he is. Leicester have got no worries - if something happened to Schmeichel, they have got a complete goalkeeper ready to go."
Ward is one of three keepers in the Wales squad for the friendly in Finland on Wednesday and World Cup qualifiers against Belarus on Sunday and Estonia on 8 September. All three will be short on match sharpness.
Long-time Wales number one Wayne Hennessey has played only one EFL Cup game for Burnley since joining the Clarets in the summer, while Adam Davies has featured twice in the competition for Stoke City this season with Joe Bursik preferred in the Championship.
Tony Roberts in training with Wales goalkeepers Wayne Hennessey, Adam Davies and Danny Ward
Tom King has played regularly for Salford since his summer move from Newport County, but was not called up for this international camp.
"Wayne has got a new challenge at Burnley where he is competing with an England goalkeeper [Nick Pope]," Roberts says.
"I spoke to the goalkeeping coach at Burnley - they phoned me asking about him.
"I said they won't be getting a goalkeeper who is going there to sit on the bench. He wants to compete and play in the Premier League again. I can't speak highly enough of Wayne as a person and a pro.
"Adam has been in and out at Stoke. Hopefully he'll get back in there. The quality we have in the [Wales] sessions when we meet up is top level."
Born in Holyhead, two-cap former Queens Park Rangers and Dagenham & Redbridge player Roberts knows the life of a back-up keeper having been in the Wales squad during the Neville Southall era.
The 52-year-old's coaching career began at QPR before a lengthy stint at Arsenal. He then switched to Swansea City in 2015 and joined Chris Coleman's Wales staff in 2016.
Roberts followed Coleman to Hebei China Fortune in 2018 and returned to English football at Birmingham City last season, before linking up with Bruno Lage - who he worked with at Swansea - at Wolves in July.
"I didn't realise how big a club Wolves was until I got here," he says.
"The way the boss wants to play, he fears nobody. He is getting into the players now, changing their mindset - we are a good team, we have got good players. He wants them to show what they can do."
Roberts linked up with Wolves just days after Wales' Euro 2020 ended in second-round defeat to Denmark.
Having watched Euro 2016 as "a fan in the pub with the Swansea staff", Roberts was thrilled to be part of his country's second European Championship.
"To get through the group stage was a massive achievement," he says.
"We have got a good squad - it's a young squad which is completely different to 2016. The boys did well."
Now the focus is on reaching a World Cup, a stage Wales last graced in 1958.
"That would be top," Roberts says. "Growing up as a boy I watched them all, I think the first one I remember was 1978.
"To actually go to one and be involved in helping a team perform in one, that is the ultimate for a coach."