THE VIEW FROM SWITZERLAND

SWITZERLAND boss Vladimir Petkovic claims their World Cup playoff with Northern Ireland will have no bearing on the meetings with the Republic of Ireland.

Michael O’neill’s side suffered a heartbreaking 1-0 aggregate defeat after a controversial penalty decision went against them.

And since then, the Swiss – top seeds in this Euro 2020 Group D - have kicked on to become the top ranked UEFA nation.

But Petkovic (left) said: “It’s very hard to make the comparison between the two Irish teams. It will be a different game.

“From my point of view, two years ago we played in Dublin and lost 1-0 (in a friendly) and I would prefer to focus on our team than the opponent.

“Ireland are a very good team. They have a different style of playing football.

“But the more difficult challenge is to show on the pitch how we have become number one in Europe. Our aim is to confirm that we have improved.”

But Petkovic is braced for the bounce factor Ireland should have with a new manager, Mick Mccarthy, at the helm.

“A new coach can lead to improvements but what makes me much more worried is that they don’t concede a lot of goals,” he said.

“I remember when we played against them it was very hard to score and we didn’t succeed in the end.

“That will be the focus now, to try and score against this strong defending team.”