Both players play their club football in Italy with Vucinic's exploits with Roma making him the man the Azzurri are most likely to fear.

And while Jovetic is yet to fully make his name at Fiorentina, Lippi believes the 18-year-old will provide no less threat than Vucinic, saying: "They are both young and important players. We cannot give them much space because they will take advantage."

The world champions will be looking to return to winning ways after their goalless draw against Bulgaria at the weekend and consolidate their position at the top of the standings.

Italy have a three-point cushion over the Republic of Ireland at the head of the group.

Giovanni Trapattoni's men have a game in hand, however, and the Italians know they must maintain their positive run to hold on to their advantage.

"We have to win in order to give value to our draw in Sofia," said Lippi. "Otherwise, these two games would end up being negative results for us.

"If we really want a victory, we achieve it but with respect to the game at Bulgaria. We will have to create much more in attack against Montenegro to take a win."

Italy will be boosted by the news Gennaro Gattuso, Daniele De Rossi and Giuseppe Rossi will be fit for the game after sustaining knocks in the draw with Bulgaria.

The Azzurri will, however, be without Bayern Munich striker Luca Toni, who will serve a one-match ban after picking up a booking at the weekend, with Fiorentina striker Alberto Gilardino to take his place in the only likely change.

Montenegro have yet to claim their first win in qualifying but they remain unbeaten after draws against Bulgaria and Ireland. And the Montenegrins are aware of the challenge they face at the Via Del Mare stadium.

"We have a lot of respect for the world champions," said Montenegro Federation president Dejan Savicevic, who wore the colours of AC Milan in his playing days. "But I am very familiar with Italian football, and we are also aware that Italy do have weaknesses.

"We will give everything we have because we have nothing to lose."

Bulgaria will go in search of their first win of the campaign when they travel to Tbilisi to play the also winless Georgia.

Georgia came from behind to grab a 1-1 draw with Cyprus on Saturday and while Bulgaria's goalless draw with world champions Italy may have been more notable, it did not stop the vice president of their federation, Yordan Lechkov, from criticising the senior players.

He said: "The leaders should give more than that.

"It's not serious to see (Dimitar) Berbatov running 2,000 metres during the whole match with the world champions.

"Stilian Petrov passed the ball back 20 times to Ivan Ivanov. Martin Petrov has been recovering from injury for a whole month and he shouldn't play."

Berbatov responded to those comments, saying: "When I want to say something to someone I'm looking him in the eyes."

Cyprus coach Angelos Anastasiades has warned his players they need to cut out the errors that have blighted their campaign to date when they face the Republic of Ireland.

The Cypriots have taken only one point from their first two games against Italy and Georgia, and Anastasiades said: "We should have had six points the way we have played. It could have been zero points or two points, but we have got one.

"God will decide what we get, and he is a very good person. But we cannot afford any mistakes tomorrow night because that would be very costly."

Ireland should be boosted for the game by the addition of injury-prone winger Damien Duff who missed their opening two games.

Trappatoni has also indicated he may throw 20-year-old Manchester United starlet Darron Gibson into the action.

The Italian said: "At the moment, we are missing Steven Reid and his physical aspect. Also, we need big players. Robbie [Keane] is not big, but springs well, and [Kevin] Doyle also. But [Aiden] McGeady is little, [Damien] Duff is little.

"In international football, teams score goals from high balls. The first reason is his [Gibson's] height, the second is he plays with confidence.

"He doesn't play very often, but he plays for Manchester United, and Manchester United are a very important team.

"If he is calm and he is not worried, he will play. I want to try him out because he could be somebody who works very, very well in midfield also in the future."