Mick McCarthy is expecting a very tough challenge from Tuesday’s opponents, as Ireland face Georgia in the Euro 2020 qualifying clash at the Aviva Stadium.
The manager is under no illusions about the quality of the opposition that his side will face at Lansdowne Road tomorrow night, in what will be his first home match in charge since returning to the Ireland role.
The manager has watched the previous encounters between Ireland and Georgia, and their Group D 2-0 defeat to Switzerland on Saturday, and is more than convinced that his team will face a very good ball-playing side in Dublin.
"I’ve seen them play, they are a very good side," said McCarthy, speaking at the pre-match press conference. "Although they were beaten 2-0 by Switzerland, the Swiss were just better than them."
"If we allow Georgia to settle and have possession of the ball, they are very good. And I watched Switzerland, and they didn’t allow them to do it.
"Switzerland are arguably the best team in the group and they dominated the ball, which is unusual because Georgia try to do that.
"But it is my team tomorrow that is going out, so it is a different set of circumstances to what happened before," added McCarthy, when asked whether Ireland had allowed Georgia too much time and space to play possession football in previous encounters.
The manager has only had two days to properly prepare for the second game of the campaign, and with time being of the essence, you get the impression that McCarthy had not forensically gone through the performance in Gibraltar on Saturday night, while he had no intention of judging players based on the game, which was played in appalling conditions.
"The national anthem was one of the only things I enjoyed in Gibraltar," said McCarthy. "The anthem. The Goal. The final whistle. That was about it.
"And I’m not going to judge those players on that pitch, that wind, those circumstances.
"I had two trains of thought in my mind for the two games. The game on Saturday didn’t have a bearing on [the Georgia game] at all."
Ireland have struggled against Georgia in recent years, most notably in the 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign when Martin O'Neill's side enjoyed a fortuitous 1-0 home win, while getting totally dominated in the away fixture, where they were outplayed and settled for a 1-1 draw.
In that match Georgia enjoyed a remarkable 79 per cent of possession, prompting Harry Arter to recall that the players left the pitch thinking that they had just played against Manchester City.
McCarthy will have certainly learned all about Georgia's strengths and weaknesses from reviewing the games from the O'Neill era, yet the manager does not believe that there is any additional pressure on his side going into this match.
"What has happened in the past doesn't increase any pressure on me at all.
"I've started with a pretty ordinary performance and got three points, the same three points that it would have been if we'd played brilliantly and won by more goals.
"The history of it doesn't bother me. There's no more pressure on me than having to stand in front of 45,000 people who have got great goodwill towards me and are all expecting good things from us all.
"There's enough pressure. I don't let other things affect me."
So what to expect from Ireland at Lansdowne Road tomorrow night? The former Sunderland boss tends to focus more on talking about winning football, rather than discussing his style.
"I guess a fast, attacking, aggressive Irish performance that I think we all appreciate," said McCarthy when asked about his first match back at Lansdowne Road.
"It's not going to be easy because they'll be difficult to play against, but outside all of that, I'll still take a win however it comes.
"That's my intention of how to play - let's see if that bears fruit. But let's hope we win because the objective for me with seven games to go is to qualify for the Euros."
McCarthy revealed that he has been very impressed with what he has seen in training over the past week and sees enough quality in his squad to overcome Georgia.
"I think it’s a tough task," said the manager.
"We’re at home so we have to take all the advantages that we can, and get the crowd behind us by starting well and seeing where that takes us.
"I think we have got real quality in the team, there is too much negativity about the team not scoring.
"Jeff Hendrick had scored one in 50-odd, let’s home we can get someone else on it"
Yet despite the confidence coming from the manager, McCarthy would not go as far as saying it is a must-win encounter at this early stage of the qualifying stages.
"I’m very excited," said McCarthy, when asked about how he was feeling ahead of his return to the Dublin venue, back in charge of the senior side.
"If we lost tomorrow and won all the others it wouldn’t really matter. But we’re not thinking about that."
