Martin O'Neill has reminded his Republic of Ireland players of their excellent form at Euro 2016.
O'Neill has played down a slump in performances since they reached the last-16 in June, where they were knocked out by France, ahead of their third World Cup qualifier against Moldova on Sunday.
Ireland drew away to Serbia before beating Georgia in September, and O'Neill insists those results are suffice.
He said: "Everybody goes through these periods, even teams like Portugal. They won the competition then lost to Switzerland. Things like this happen.
"We can play better, we know that. We did this in France - a couple of months ago. It's only a couple of months ago since we played brilliantly against Sweden and beat Italy. And for a long period we had France. You would have to say they were extremely concerned about us.
"We have played two games in (World Cup qualifying); drawn against a top-class Serbia side and then haven't played very well at home (against Georgia) and that can happen. These things are forgotten about but you are talking about top-level football, so it's going to be hard.
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"We have to try to raise ourselves again for this. It's a big game for us and obviously the result is the most important thing."
O'Neill will be without Jeff Hendrick (suspended) and Robbie Brady (injured), but he is confident he has the players to cover.
"It will be a blow for us - the two of them out at the same time - but that's the way it goes, so we have other players to come in and hopefully they will fill those gaps, and go and perform."