Sanchez hopes for home comforts

Northern Ireland manager Lawrie Sanchez is determined to end a dreadful home record on Wednesday when Austria are the visitors in a World Cup qualifier.

While the province have gone seven matches on the road unbeaten, they have not won at Windsor Park for three long years.

The last victory there came in September 2001 when Iceland were defeated.

Sanchez said: “We must change that. Unlike our impressive record away from our home form is not up to standard.

“There will be a full house at Windsor and the crowd will get behind us which always helps.”

Northern Ireland know this is a vital match against Austria after gaining only two points from three qualifiers.

After losing at home to Poland they drew with Wales and then Azerbaijan at the weekend.

Sanchez said: “Sloppy mistakes cost us against Poland and they came so early in the game that we found it hard to recover.

“We must eliminate those in midweek and also take our chances when they come.

“Before the Azerbaijan match I said I wanted four points from the double header with them and Austria and we are still on course for that.

“Yes, we should have beaten Azerbaijan but we have moved on from that now and are only concentrating on Austria.”

Sanchez has seen his squad increase from 18 to 23 players ahead of the qualifier against Austria, who went down to Poland at the weekend.

Paul McVeigh, George McCartney, Steve Jones and Gary Hamilton have all reported to the team’s base in Belfast after missing the Azerbaijan trip through injury.

David Healy has also arrived – and looks certain to start up front – after serving a one-match ban.

Sanchez will monitor Chris Baird’s fitness in the next 24 hours as he suffered a badly bruised ankle in Baku.

He sat out training today as did McCartney, who has a hamstring problem.

“The return of David Healy, who is our one regular goalscorer at international level, is a big boost,” the Northern Ireland boss told the Belfast Telegraph.

Sanchez has hit back at Azerbaijan coach Carlos Alberto, who criticised his team’s style.

He said: “I don’t care what he says. I’m confident we’ll beat his team at Windsor next year and we’ll see what he says then.

“Until that comes around my only focus is on getting three points against Austria.”