Gareth Bale can shake Wales out of their complacency brought on by Euro 2016 qualification.
That is the self-critical verdict of manager Chris Coleman, who will welcome the Real Madrid star back into the squad for the first time in eight months on Wednesday.
Since beating Andorra to reach the tournament finals in France, Wales have lost two and drawn one of three friendly matches.
The downturn has not alarmed Coleman, but it has concerned him sufficiently to stress the importance of a victory – or at least a positive performance – in their final warm-up game against Sweden in Stockholm on Sunday.
“Since we qualified our results are nothing to shout about,” admitted Coleman. “We went through a run of results where we were almost unbeatable but since then we have tailed off a bit.
“Sometimes with success comes a little bit of complacency, subconsciously. It’s not because of the group of people we’ve got. I’m not saying our players are intentionally walking around giving it the big one. They are not doing that.
“But it is human nature. You think about what you’ve done, but you’re living in the past too much, you are not thinking about right now. That’s what we have to do. It is about what’s next.
“We are at our best when we are right on it. Forget Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey, even with those two in the team we need to be maxing out in any game to get a good result.”
Wales beat Belgium to finish their qualification campaign with just one loss but the matches since – defeats by Holland and Ukraine with a late draw against Northern Ireland – have been disappointing.
But Bale, who arrives back as a two-time Champions League winner, will raise the mentality once again having insisted in the aftermath of shootout victory in the San Siro that Wales can win silverware this summer.
“I thought, “Cheers for that, a semi-final just will not do!”’ said Coleman, laughing. “But in all seriousness, that is the mentality we want. When you have someone like that in your group we have to raise ourselves to his level, not the other way around.
“It is not just about his ability, players like Gareth are never afraid of a challenge, they think they are going to win, to do well. That is the mentality of achievement. They are never happy, there always has to be something else.
“That is good for me and everyone else because we want to go as far as we can, we are not there to enjoy the moment. Once the tournament is done we can pick the bones out of it, but right now we are fighting, climbing and scratching to make sure we have a successful and elongated tournament.”
