Ashley Williams has admitted that retiring from international football was a possibility after Wales failed to qualify for the World Cup this summer.

Wales came third in Group D with Serbia going through as winners, before the Republic of Ireland knocked them out of the qualifiers with a 1-0 win in October.

The 33-year-old centre-back has revealed how World Cup heartbreak almost led to him walking away from international commitments.

"It was just so disappointing missing out on [the World Cup] that I had to think about retirement," Williams told reporters.

"I spoke to the people closest to me, I didn't want to retire or anything like that. But I felt like it was something that I should've thought about and seen where I was at with club and international football and life in general. I did give that a thought, but then I decided I wanted to keep doing it anyway."

The Toffees defender met up with new Wales manager Ryan Giggs ahead of the 2018 China Cup, which also features Czech Republic and Uruguay.

"The gaffer (Ryan Giggs) wanted to know my thoughts on certain things and told me his view about going forward. So it was an important thing to do before the camp, to help the gaffer to come into a group that's been together for so long. As the captain, it's my job to help knit that together I suppose. It's a new start and we want to do that by playing to our best and to our full potential," he added

"We've made it clear we want to win this tournament and, as strong as the opponents are, when else do you get to play an international tournament without so many teams in and with a chance to win a cup? It would be great for us to take it back to Wales."

Wales thrashed China 6-0 in the semi-finals of the China Cup in Nanning on Thursday, with Gareth Bale scoring a hat-trick.