Nigel Worthington is preparing to unleash his tiny terrors against Slovakia on Saturday evening in a bid to prove that bigger is not always better.

Without 6ft 5ins hitman Kyle Lafferty, who has returned to Ibrox with a recurring back injury, Northern Ireland have lost any aerial threat they possessed.

And that is a major concern for Worthington against a giant Slovakian team who are hungry for a victory having failed to win a game in four attempts.

Lafferty had been expected to replace Chris Brunt, after his disappointing performance against Scotland, in Worthington’s new look 4-5-1 formation that the Northern Ireland boss wants to use in away games.

But now the West Brom winger should retain his place on the left.

Northern Ireland’s record goalscorer David Healy will lead the attack and even though flying winger Keith Gillespie is back to full fitness, Burnley hotshot Martin Paterson who has been scoring goals on a regular basis for his new club should get the nod on the right after excelling in the first half against Scotland.

Gillespie however has trained with his international team-mates this week and that is excellent news for Worthington who will monitor his situation over the next few days and he could indeed use his speed and creativity to frighten the life out of the Slovaks.

Whoever Worthington chooses to go with and he will not announce his team until kick off, it still leaves us relatively short up front. That was the case against Scotland and therefore Worthington will be working in training today and tomorrow on methods to break down the Slovakian defence without using height.

Worthington was extremely satisfied with the new 4-5-1 against Scotland and is determined to employ it out here in Bratislava.

That though throws up another conundrum for the former Norwich City boss — where does he play Jonny Evans, man of the match against the Scots last month after a commanding display at the heart of Northern Ireland’s defence alongside Stephen Craigan?

They were both immense in front of Maik Taylor who celebrates his 37th birthday today.

Captain Aaron Hughes will return, Worthington has confirmed that while there is no chance the manager will ever consider dropping Craigan again unless he delivers a below par performance such was the backlash last year after the Motherwell defender was dropped for the dismal results in Riga and Reykjavik.

Sunderland’s £6million new boy George McCartney is Worthington’s number one choice at left back which leaves only two possible positions for Evans to occupy if Hughes and Craigan are the centre halfs.

Despite performing heroics for Northern Ireland at right back in his last six internationals, Ipswich’s regular centre back Gareth McAuley is believed to be in danger of losing his shirt.

That would be extremely harsh on the former Coleraine defender so instead Manchester United whizz kid Evans should instead be given the role of just playing in front of the back four — unfortunate on Fulham’s Chris Baird who gave a decent performance in that position at Hampden Park but then Worthington is entrusted to make the difficult decisions.

Hugely talented duo of Rangers Steve Davis and Norwich City’s Sammy Clingan will make up the centre of midfield but it’s vitally important that whoever plays that position just in front of the back four does not leave a gaping hole between themselves and the two centre midfielders otherwise it will be easily exploited by the Slovaks.

The Northern Ireland team arrived at their base in downtown Bratislava amidst sweltering heat and the news it’s only going to get hotter. They trained last night in slightly cooler evening conditions but have been made aware that come 5.30pm local time on Saturday they should still expect the temperature to be 28 degrees.

Midfielder Clingan though is unconcerned by the hot weather nor he is worried about the Slovak team’s physical presence. He admits that Northern Ireland have seen it all before during qualifying campaigns.

“We know very little about the Slovakians but you can be assured we are in for a physical battle and their team will be full of man-mountains,” says Clingan.

“It’s warm out here, something we haven’t been used to in recent weeks but I don’t envisage the heat being a problem when we kick off.”

Worthington naturally wants his players to play it cool in these hot conditions and as long as Northern Ireland don’t get their fingers burnt on their travels this week then it will be considered a decent start to the campaign. The giant Slovaks though will be looking to crush our midget gems.

They’ll be in for a mighty fight though, for after all don’t they say good things come in small packages?