Mark Hughes claims people should no longer be surprised that his team can pull off hugely impressive results anywhere in Europe.

Wales have now gone five games unbeaten going into next month's World Cup campaign, and added the scalp of Euro 2004 finalists Latvia to their growing list with a 2-0 away win.

Hughes said: "Nobody now can surely be surprised at our results. We have been doing it now for two years and we are capable of giving anyone in the world a good game when we have everybody fit. And that includes England.

"We defended superbly, young James Collins coming on as a substitute doing particularly well.

"Andy Melville has picked up a hamstring injury and that could rule him out for at least a couple of weeks, and that means he may not be fit to face Azerbaijan and Northern Ireland.

"But James has handled this well. He is only 20 and he has great physical strength and a desire to learn."

Collins, amazingly, cannot even get into the Cardiff team at the moment, being kept out by Wales teammate Robert Page, who he ended up playing alongside in the Skonto stadium.

And Hughes hailed his goal-hungry strike-force of Craig Bellamy and John Hartson after their demolition of Latvia and claimed they would frighten any team in the world.

The pair both struck vital late goals to send Latvia spinning to defeat.

Hughes, whose side have now gone five games without defeat since they failed to reach Portugal themselves in the play-off disaster against Russia, now marches into next month's World Cup qualifiers full of confidence.

They'll be facing England at Old Trafford in October, and the form shown by Bellamy, in particular, will give Sven-Goran Eriksson plenty to think about.

Hughes said: "He is as sharp and as confident as I have ever seen him in his career. I was delighted with the performance of both my front men. Craig was outstanding while John led the line superbly.

"He got no protection from the referee, and that is something I seem to talk about over and over again, but he kept his cool and led the line superbly all night."

Hughes' criticism of referee Valentin Ivanov explains his decision to substitute Robbie Savage at half time with the Birmingham man already booked.

Hughes said: "The way the referee was controlling the match I decided to take Robbie off. We have some very important games coming up and I did not want to see him become the victim of a poor refereeing decision."

Hughes added: "As for the front two, I could not have been happier. They are capable of hurting any team in the world playing like that, and that includes England.

"I was not too happy with the overall performance, but that was a measure of where we are in our season. We have just started, but I would have expected us to fade a bit because of that near the end, but we actually got stronger."

Latvia coach Aleksandrs Starkovs also praised the Bellamy-Hartson partnership.

He said: "It is for Sven-Goran Eriksson to decide whether they will be a danger to him, but the way Wales attacked and the quality of their play shows that they can cause a problem to any team in the world.

"I would like to congratulate Wales, they were fine opponents and I wish them luck in their World Cup games...and hope they beat England."