RAMSEY JUST AS IMPORTANT AS BALE, INSISTS WALES BOSS COLEMAN

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Updated: June 3, 2016
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All the attention will be on the Welsh Champions League winner, as the Dragons look to succeed at Euro 2016, but the 53-year-old manager believes credit is also due elsewhere
 Chris Coleman insists Aaron Ramsey is just as big for Wales as star man Gareth Bale ahead of Euro 2016.

Real Madrid attacker Bale is widely recognised as the team’s figurehead, but the Arsenal midfielder is another squad member who is playing regular Champions League football at club level.

Coleman believes Ramsey, 25, could benefit significantly from all the attention on his high-profile team-mate and stresses his importance to Wales’ hopes at the tournament in France.

Bale, Ramsey

“He’s as big for us as anyone,” Coleman said to Wales Online. “Aaron could go under the radar because of Gareth, but I think it’s good for him.

“Gareth doesn’t care, he’s got that personality where he just gets on with it and it’s good for Aaron – if he’s under the radar he won’t have a problem with that.

“All I expect from Aaron is just to be Aaron Ramsey on the pitch for us, because there’s no one like him.

“Some of the performances I’ve seen him put in are total dominance in a football game from a midfielder – the best performances I’ve seen from any Welsh midfielder, and that’s how good he can be. Baleo will tell you how good Aaron Ramsey is.”

Coleman feels that when Ramsey is on top of his game he can produce moments that no other player can.

The manager added: “For us, he gives us something that we haven’t got. He can do things in the position he plays in that other players can’t do. He can start play on the edge of our box and he can finish it off on the edge of the opposition box.

“He went to Scotland and absolutely ran the game. He went to Belgium in the first campaign with almost our reserve team and he ran the game. We dictated the tempo of the game and he was brilliant.

“I’m a believer that you’re as good as your best game because that’s the level that you can get to.

“When you’ve got the imagination he has and you’ve got the confidence he has, when you try something it’s not always going to come off. But when it comes off, he can open doors that nobody else can.”

Wales are in Group B for the Euros along with England, Russia and Slovakia, who they meet in their first game on June 11.