Isaac Price says revenge will be in the air at Windsor Park on Tuesday night when Northern Ireland take on Bulgaria.
In last month’s Nations League encounter between the teams, the Bulgarians came out on top, claiming a 1-0 victory in Plovdiv where the visitors were confronted by a hostile atmosphere.
The opposite was the case for Northern Ireland at the weekend when they played out a 0-0 draw against Belarus in Hungary with no fans in attendance due to a UEFA ruling.
From the silence of Saturday, Standard Liege’s Price is expecting Windsor Park to be rocking for the crucial clash with Bulgaria.
Michael O’Neill’s side would have gone top of their League C group had they defeated Belarus but failed to take advantage of numerous chances created in the first half, leaving them in third place a point behind their two opponents in this international window.
There was an edge to the September encounter against Bulgaria and one month on it could be a similar story in Belfast.
“Yeah, I think there’s a little bit of revenge in the squad. We feel like not hard done by, but we were disappointed after the game not to get anything from it,” said Price.
“The pitch wasn’t great, but there was no real excuse for it. We just made a mistake (leading to Bulgaria’s goal) and we couldn’t really take our chances in the final third.
“We want to beat them in Belfast. We’re really looking forward to the game and to go out and put on a good performance.”
On the intimidating atmosphere in Bulgaria, Price added: “I think you have a few teams abroad where they have the so-called Ultras. We have them in Belgium and it is a little bit intimidating, especially when you’re not used to it.
“But we bring fans, too, and our fans are great at every away game. When we travel to places like Kazakhstan, the support is always top, so we can’t really blame that.
“Every game I’ve played at Windsor has been absolutely rocking. Hopefully it stays like that and we can get a good result on Tuesday.”