He admitted securing a move back to his hometown club Cardiff City in the summer felt like a “weight off his shoulders”.
The 32-year-old made no secret of his desire to be back with his wife and children having lived apart when he was at Nice and before then in Glasgow with Rangers and Turin with Juventus.
Ramsey is very happy mentally and physically, he’s in good shape after starting five times this season for Cardiff.
That is all good news for Wales in a week where they play two matches but with only one really counting – the Euro 2024 qualifier against Latvia in Riga on Monday September 11. Wales need a refreshed and rejuvenated Ramsey perhaps like never before. The captain needs to help solve the problems of June’s Euro qualifiers where they lost both games including a nightmare 4-2 home defeat to Armenia. It will have dented confidence and belief.
Ramsey, in his way, needs to reassure and inspire the rest of the squad during the week on and off the training pitch. Wales, for the best part of a decade now, haven’t been used to inexplicable and demoralizing defeats.
On the pitch, Ramsey needs to set the tone and rhythm by which Wales must play in order to win in Latvia. It is a must-win.
By their own admission, Wales are in transition following the retirements of Gareth Bale and Joe Allen among others.
Ramsey is the beacon and the standard to which Wales need to reach. He knows for sure that what he does on the pitch will be more closely monitored than before.
Get it right and the youngsters, chief among them Tottenham’s Deadline Day signing Brennan Johnson, will have an experienced figure to find and follow.
Ramsey can and needs to help his team-mates calm their nerves, believe in the plans of the coaches and show drive, determination and stubborn belief to know they can overcome and succeed during difficult moments.
He is the player, the captain, the leader who has a stocked in-tray of tasks to fulfil over the next week.
Being the captain of an experienced, winning team isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s a simpler task compared with the one facing Ramsey.
