Oliver Norwood insists Northern Ireland must keep Windsor Park a fortress to reach World Cup
Tuesday 17 October 2017 14:40, UK
Oliver Norwood says Northern Ireland must keep Windsor Park a "fortress" against Switzerland to reach next year's World Cup.
Northern Ireland were handed a first-leg home tie against Switzerland in the play-off draw on Tuesday, with manager Michael O'Neill admitting his side would have preferred to have the second leg on home soil.
But Brighton midfielder Norwood, who is currently on loan at Fulham, believes Northern Ireland's home record can help them gain the upper hand against a side who only missed out on automatic qualification by a final group-game defeat to Portugal.
Northern Ireland won four of their five home group games in the qualifiers, only losing in Belfast to Germany.
"We've got to look to capitalise on that, hopefully they're a bit downbeat and that lingers into the play-offs," said Norwood.
"Going to Windsor first hopefully we can take advantage.
"It's been a fortress for us the last few years, teams haven't enjoyed coming there, we've got to look to keep it that way."
Norwood added: "Whoever we would draw it was going to be difficult, being unseeded. We fancy ourselves against anybody, it's two cup finals now.
"We've been through it before in the Euros, the way we qualified against Greece. We treated that as a cup final and the way we dealt with the pressure was unbelievable."
