France face the Irish in a World Cup play-off and the first leg will be at Croke Park on Saturday.
“It’s one of the biggest games I’ve played in because at the end you can go to the World Cup so we have to win it,” he told Arsenal TV.
“I think France have just missed one (World Cup finals) so it would be a big shame to stay here. I don’t want to think about it, I just want to play at the World Cup.
“We have to give more than we did in qualifying and if we do that we’ll be fine.”
“It’ll be a very intensive game and we have to be ready,” he said. “There’ll be a good atmosphere and they have good players but we (who play in the Premier League) know the players so we can talk about them to the other players.
“It’ll be a crazy game. They (the Irish) are crazy about football and I expect them to run all over the pitch to give everything and in the away game as well.”
