DENIS Smith returned to work and immediately urged his players to up the pace in their League Two promotion push.
The Wrexham manager was back at Colliers Park on Monday after undergoing a hip operation.
In his absence, the Dragons lost ground on the chasing pack with a 2-1 home defeat to Leyton Orient. And given their inactivity at the weekend, Smith's men have slipped to their lowest position since October.
Yet with games in hand, the Reds are still very much in the hunt for a top-seven finish.
But the boss thinks the time for talk is over.
Smith, whose side welcome the leaders Wycombe Wanderers to the Racecourse on Saturday, said: 'We need to beat whoever is put in front of us now.
'Our minimum aim is to reach the play-offs and to do that we've got to start pushing on.
'It's going to be hard because the league is so tight. I was talking to a few managers who are in charge of teams down at the bottom and they were talking about making the play-offs, so there's a lot of us who fancy our chances.'
One of the main reasons for Wrexham's inconsistency has been their inability to take their chances following the loss of Lee McEvilly to a foot injury in December.
But that's a problem Smith hopes to have solved by the double-loan capture of Aston Villa youngster Sam Williams, and on Monday, of fans' favourite Juan Ugarte.
The duo have been signed to help the tireless Jon Walters, who has started every game.
Walters took his tally up to seven with a brace in the 2-0 FAW Premier Cup quarter-final win at Newport County last Wednesday, which set-up last night's semi-final with TNS.
The 18-year-old Williams turned in an encouraging display against Newport, but it's the arrival of Ugarte that's really got supporters excited.
The Basque hitman, who scored 23 goals for Wrexham last season and saw an earlier loan spell back at the Dragons curtailed by a knee injury, has signed on a month's deal from Championship strugglers Crewe Alexandra.
Boss Smith said: 'It's great to have him back. It gives me options up front, as we've also brought in Sam.
'Hopefully we've got a good mix up there now. People like Lee McEvilly and Juan are goalscorers, as was Andy Morrell before them.
Then you have the strikers who don't go as noticed, despite doing a lot of hard work.
Captain Darren Ferguson, Andy Holt and Dennis Lawrence return for the Wycombe game, but McEvilly and Lee Roche are out. lSupporters are reminded that the kick-off time for Saturday has been moved to 1pm to avoid clashing with the England versus Wales Six Nations rugby union game.
