NATIONAL manager Chris Coleman is ready to lead Wales into the 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign but he says his biggest task has been to lift the players and himself after the remarkable success of Euro 2016.

Coleman led Wales to the semi-finals in France this summer and, ahead of the start of the new campaign against Moldova in Cardiff next Monday night, he admits the squad has suffered from a post-Euros depression.

And he too has found it hard to move on from the greatest achievement of his managerial career.

“I can understand it,” said the Wales boss. “When I got home for the two weeks after it I think my wife was expecting me to be a certain way and I was not. I was on a bit of a downer.

“The situation is so exciting, it is exhausting but you have all that emotion. But when it finishes, you don’t get weaned off it, it is over and you are back into reality as fathers and husbands.

“It was really hard and I know a lot of the lads did too. You miss that buzz. You feel like you need a rest when it is going on, but once it finishes you pine for it.

“When you see the games on TV you feel yourself going back to it. It was so special, but it is gone, that moment is finished. We have to create something new.”

Coleman wants to build on the summer’s success and keep the feel-good factor going.

“The identity we have got, we have to stick to it,” he said.

“When we are on the pitch the players have shown what it means to them to represent Wales.

“They stick to the game-plan and if we get a good result against Moldova it has to mean the same as the results in the last campaign.

“Be it Andorra or Belgium, if we got something out of those games it meant the same. That is how it has to be.

“I am not promising that we will play superb football. We played great stuff against Russia and Belgium at the tournament, but against Northern Ireland we did not play well and we had to fight.

“As long as we are getting to where we need to be, and as long as the fans and players understand we will not have it all our own way.

“We spoke about being streetwise in the last campaign and we need to show it, especially in these opening games because it is a new challenge and we will see where we are with it.”