Mark Lawrenson/Soccer Analyst: Afraid to say, I have a bad feeling about this one. What worries me is that whenever these big games come around, away from home, we always seem to fall gloriously short - that's not an indictment of the team, it's just a statement of fact. While I want to be as upbeat as I can, I just feel it's going to be the same story again today.

I quite fancy us to go and get a draw, which under normal circumstances - win at home, draw away - would be a good result, but it's been such a long time since we've got a win when we've really needed one away from Lansdowne Road. Because of our lack of depth, lack of quality, we just can't seem to turn very creditable draws away from home into wins.

If we just needed a point I would say it's more than possible, but to actually go and win, my gut feeling says no. Even with Damien Duff and Robbie Keane we are still extremely limited in many, many areas.

Of course we get excited and all worked up about games like this, but when you actually analyse it you have to say we've done really well to even get into this position. Even the most myopic of Irish supporters would admit we're limited. Look at four of the contenders for our midfield today - Lee Carsley, Mark Kinsella, Colin Healy and Kevin Kilbane. Carsley and Kinsella have hardly played this season, Healy is only getting started at Sunderland and Kilbane has been on the bench the last couple of games for Everton - therein lies our problem, scratch away at the surface and there's not too much underneath.

Kenny Cunningham is a big loss, in terms of leadership, organisation and communication - and, of course, in terms of losing that regular partnership between him and Gary Breen. In saying that I don't have too many fears for us defensively because we can we defend well as a team. I worry more about the other end - Switzerland will have done their homework, they'll know about Duff, they'll know about Keane, and they'll know the rest probably won't cause them too many problems.

I'm assuming John O'Shea will play in the middle of defence, in place of Cunningham. In doing that I think he'll be moving into his better position. I know myself, from experience, when you go back to your natural position, having being played elsewhere, it's a bit like putting on a pair of old slippers - put them on and you're away. O'Shea and Breen? As ever, I worry about Breen, but I'm comfortable enough with that partnership.

Steve Finnan or Ian Harte at left back? Finnan. No question. Harte will give you different things, a real threat at set-pieces, but Finnan is a better defender and, away from home, I don't think you can run the risk of playing the less dependable full back. You can always bring Harte on if you're chasing the game, but away from home you have to pick a team that you think is not going to make mistakes - the fewer players you have to worry about when you send them out the better for the manager.

Midfield? The problem against Russia was that three of the midfield had hardly played at all that season, in Carsley's case he hadn't played at all, so I just thought that was too much of a gamble. I'd expect Kilbane to start on the left and I'd expect Brian Kerr to go for Kinsella over Healy to play alongside Matt Holland in the middle, largely because they've played together a lot and, in the absence of Cunningham, the partnership is better equipped to protect the back two.

If you go with Carsley, Kinsella, Holland and Kilbane across the middle you have a very hard-working midfield that will be defensively strong - they might not offer you too much going forward but then you say to Duff and Keane, "go and win us the game, we'll sort the rest of it out".

You can still change it, if it's 0-0 with 20 minutes to go all bets are off, you go for it. But what you have to ensure is that you are in a position to go for it. Take the least number of gambles at the start, don't end up being 1-0 or 2-0 down after 30 minutes.

You have to be slightly wary, have a look at the Swiss - who knows, nerves might get to them, in which case if it's still 0-0 at half-time you might decide to make a couple of changes and go at them. That's one thing we've very good at, once we build up a head of steam we do put teams under pressure. Give Duff and Keane the best possible chance of winning us the game, while at the same time making sure the back door is firmly shut.

Having said all that, by the end of today's game I fear we'll be ruing our two defeats in this group, even draws from those games would have made the task in Switzerland so much easier. We'll see, but I have a sinking feeling that a draw is as much as we can get, which, of course, won't be enough.

As for England - well, that threat of a player strike was an absolute joke, they were so totally misguided. All they needed to say was that they felt very strongly about what had happened to Rio Ferdinand, but you don't threaten to strike. When all is said and done the fella didn't turn up for a drugs test that he'd been told about two hours earlier. If that was Sonia O'Sullivan? Sonia says, "yeah, I'll be back in two hours after training", and then disappears out the back door? Yeah, right! There was a meeting at the start of training when Alex Ferguson read out the names of the players who were to be tested, they knew what they had to do. You've got to look at the medical staff at Manchester United in all of this, they should have made sure Ferdinand was there - they are culpable as well.

Honestly, I can understand the Football Association's stance, they did the right thing. The fact is Ferdinand has already committed a serious offence by not attending a drugs test. In footballing terms, though, his loss isn't great - he hasn't played well for 18 months, since the World Cup.

But, no matter what happens off the pitch, with any bunch of players once they start to play all that is forgotten.

England's biggest worry now is wondering where a goal will come from, in the absence of Michael Owen, because I think they'll need one. But there is, with England, the ability to come up with a big performance in a real big game, so I have a feeling they'll get the draw they need. Ireland, meanwhile, I fear, will get the draw that won't be good enough.

In an interview with Mary Hannigan