Ian Baraclough has urged Northern Ireland to be greedy and target maximum points from this month’s quadruple header in the Nations League.
Thursday night's home clash with Greece precedes away trips to Cyprus and Kosovo on Sunday and next Thursday followed by another home fixture against Cyprus on June 12.
And with a potential play-off route to Euro 2024 awaiting the group winners, Baraclough is eager to hit the ground running in a four team pool that concludes in September.
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Asked how many points he hopes to amass from Northern Ireland’s four games in June, Baraclough said: “Twelve. Why wouldn’t you? I do think we have a squad that can go and win all four games.
“I don’t think it’s a bad thing for me to be demanding four wins if we can, but you’re also playing opposition who will be targeting 12 points as well.”
After dropping down into League C of the Nations League, Northern Ireland are in the unfamiliar position of being top seeds in their group.
“We’ve all got to deal with that,” said Baraclough. “People will be saying we’re favourites for games and you should be winning games. We have to deal with all that outside noise.
“Let the noise go on outside the group, let people speculate what you should or shouldn’t do. We’ll take care of the processes and concentrate on what we’re doing.”
As well as chasing a potential backdoor route to the Euro 2024 finals in Germany, Northern Ireland have an added incentive to pick up three points this evening.
In 10 games across two editions of the Nations League under Michael O’Neill and Baraclough, the national team has yet to win a game and has taken just two points from a possible 30.
Northern Ireland are one of only five nations - the Republic of Ireland, Iceland, San Marino and Andorra are the others - to have failed to register a W in the competition so far.
“Nobody likes losing and I’m as desperate as anyone to say we’ve won a game in the Nations League so you (the media) move onto something else to talk about,” said Baraclough.
“Nobody likes to be criticised or to have holes picked in certain areas. That’s your job. For us, it’s about getting the processes right and winning games of football.”
Northern Ireland will be without Stoke City midfielder Jordan Thompson and Middlesbrough’s Caolan Boyd-Munce who sat out training yesterday.
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