Did a pair of painfully pale performances against Iran signal the beginning of the end for Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey? It was the elephant in the room after Wales’s defeat on Friday but Rob Page quickly swallowed the question and, such was the manager’s disappointment after a jarring loss that left his team staring at elimination, insisted now was not the time. Page did, however, concede Wales were punished because too many key players allowed the occasion to pass them by.
Bale, Wales’s all-time men’s leading goalscorer and now their most-capped male player, is almost unanimously cherished as the team’s greatest export. For a few years, regardless of the minutes he has totted up at club level, he has been able to pull on a Wales …