Home passion will help lift us

It would be difficult to imagine a starker contrast between two international fixtures.

We leave the surreal mountainside setting of Vaduz in Liechtenstein and head tonight into the raw passion of the Stadium of Light in Sunderland. Having beaten a team ranked 150th in the world, we move on to a match up with a team who reached the semifinals of the World Cup.

The first game was played out in front of a crowd where you could hear individual comments from the touchline. Tonight there will be an atmosphere to match anything in Europe, support which will raise the level of performances enormously.

We will also be playing on a recently relaid pitch, which will be conducive to confident passing. Last Saturday, David James threw me a ball which reared up off a length and ended up catching me on the chin. Glenn McGrath would have been delighted with the delivery, but the unpredictability of that type of pitch isn't a great comfort to a defender.

Of course, in both matches there are only three points at stake, but the effect on our position, and psychologically, of beating Turkey would be far greater.

Despite dropping the two points against Macedonia, the group is shaping up to be a battle between us and tonight's opponents. A win and a draw in the two fixtures against them would render the dropped points as irrelevant and barring further slip ups, send us through as group winners. Defeat tonight would almost certainly mean we would face play off matches to qualify.

We know that we will have to play at our best to beat Turkey. They will pose us lots of questions, both as individually talented players, and in the formation they tend to favour.

Midfield will be a key area. Turkey have talented footballers, and like to play through Tugay, Okan, and Basturk. We will have to counter their threat and our midfield players will have a big responsibility to defend well and provide protection for the defence.