IAN HERBERT: Rob Page has plenty of questions to answer after penalty shootout heartbreak... with the talent at his disposal Wales should not have needed a playoff to qualify for the Euros

As usual, Rob Page was boundlessly positive in the face of defeat. ‘Everything’s fine. Everything’s great,’ he last night said of his relationship with some of his Wales FA bosses, who less than six months ago were suggesting his contract would be reviewed if the country didn’t qualify for the European Championships automatically.

The country haven’t qualified for the European Championships at all, following the shoot-out defeat to Poland. 

And though Page painted a picture of himself as a central character in what happens next, he has some uncomfortable questions to answer today about his management of that game.

Though Poland were a far stronger proposition than Finland, who Wales had beaten to reach last night’s eliminator, most managers would have been desperate to replicate the most eye-catching part of the 4-1 win against them: the pace and interlinking of strikers Harry Wilson, Brennan Johnson, David Brooks and substitute Daniel James, which clearly terrified the Finns.

Page was restricted. Brooks had been ill over the weekend and was on the bench last night. But that doesn’t explain why the manager wound up bringing on James, full of confidence after his destructive exposition of pace against the Finns, as a wing back, at a time in the game when the Poles were tiring. 

And why Tottenham’s Brennan Johnson, who had been a threat, was substituted early.

You would have thought footballing curiosity might have left Page wanting to set Johnson and James together to run against a defence which had put in a major shift. But these awkward questions of game management seem to get lost in the grand sweep of the Wales story, as told by him.

For those Wales fans who travelled to Qatar at great expense, the memory of Iran sweeping through the vast spaces left open in Wales’ midfield, during the World Cup group stage defeat, will take some forgetting. 

Yet here Page is, talking transitionary periods and the new generation when we have to ask: wouldn’t that Wales side have beaten Poland under a different manager?

Kieffer Moore looked less and less likely to score as last night’s game went on, yet Page gave him the full 120 minutes. Substitute Brooks, who opened the scoring against Finland, was himself substituted, which was also puzzling.

It’s hard to get any real understanding of Page’s method or philosophy because he has never sat down to discuss either in depth. Despite Wales’ part in the delayed 2020 Euros and last World Cup, we are no closer to a comprehension of him because his media appearances in both were so brief.

There’s no overwhelming sense that the FAW suits are in a hurry to remove Page, though fans are less tranquil. Some who saw Wales lose 4-2 at home to Armenia – world ranking: 97 – and fail to win in the country’s capital, Yerevan, in the qualifying campaign, still believe he should go now.

They look at Steve Clarke’s Scotland – defeating Norway and even Spain on the way to comfortable Euros qualification – and wonder whether Page’s strategic and tactical nous is really good enough.

Amid the agony of last night’s defeat, there were individual performances that suggest Wales are not the vulnerable, transitional team Page portrays them to be. 

In Johnson, Ben Davies, Neco Williams, Nathan Ampadu, Harry Wilson and James, they have an good crop, who should not have needed to limp to the play-offs by dint of their performances in the Nations League.

Who might replace Page? That is the challenging question. The outstanding candidate would be Steve Cooper, whose early coaching career was spent at Wrexham. 

His track-record at the FA, where he oversaw England’s under 17s winning the 2017 World Cup, is precisely what a nation like Wales, desperate to develop more talents, are looking for.

Cooper may well have concluded that he is not done with the Premier League yet. He left Nottingham Forest, where the players loved him, with his reputation intact, last December. He was linked with the Crystal Palace job but it would be no surprise if other opportunities opened up.

Beyond Cooper, there are few obvious candidates. Mark Hughes would bring a deep knowledge and a greater tactical understanding than Page, though he may well feel a job such as this is no longer for him, despite being only 60.

Page’s future may become clearer after the Nations League games, against Turkey, Iceland and Montenegro, which come next for Wales this autumn. The 2026 World Cup campaign then follows. Expanded to 48 teams, it’s a tournament Wales will not want to miss out.

‘We are going somewhere. There is something good happening with this group,’ Page said on Tuesday night, though many are coming around to the view that Wales could quite easily reach that destination without him.