Our focus on attack, says Jonuz

MACEDONIA will come to the Aviva Stadium for today’s Euro 2012 qualifier with a simple game-plan — to attack Ireland from the first whistle.

Their manager, Mirsad Jonuz, was complimentary of Giovanni Trapattoni’s Ireland team last night, but didn’t mind admitting his players fancy their chances of getting a result.

“We have done everything possible to prepare our players as well as possible for this match and confidence and expectation is very high,” said Jonuz.

“If we feel good out there and deal with the atmosphere and the pressure in the stadium then I think we’ll get a good result. Our priority will be to attack.

“Both teams know one another very well. We know their qualities and they know ours. It’s a very important match for both teams because there isn’t much difference in the points that both teams have. That’s why we hope we can be successful here.

“In our last two matches against Slovakia and Russia we played well but we didn’t get any luck.

“We have a few injuries but I’m not worried about them because we have a very strong squad and I’m confident in our replacements.”

Jonuz was impressed by Ireland’s performance away to Slovakia, but expects them to adopt a more direct style of football at the Aviva today.

“I saw the match between Slovakia and Ireland and I think that Ireland were the better team and deserved to win.

“There was a very different style from Ireland in that match. It wasn’t the usual English style of football.

“There’s a very big difference though in the Irish style when they’re playing at home. We saw that against Russia.”

To counter route-one deliveries and crosses from the wing, Jonuz has chosen to play the tall and rugged centre-back Boban Gryncharov in the centre of his defence.

“We will play the taller player, Gryncharov, in defence rather than Mitrevski because we know that Ireland will play an English style of football with lots of balls sent in front of the goal,” he said.

“The assignment for our full-backs and midfielders will be to stop the Irish wingers from crossing the ball. The biggest priority for us though will be to attack.”