Paddy McNair slammed the quality of the pitch in Plovdiv after Northern Ireland’s 1-0 defeat to Bulgaria in the Nations League stating it was the worst he’s played on professionally and should not have been used for international football.
The experienced 29-year-old defender stressed he was not making excuses for the result and is not normally one for issuing no holds barred comments but he was shocked by the ‘horrendous’ surface which cut up early on in the contest.
The only goal of the game came on 40 minutes at the Stadion Hristo Botev when a loose pass from Northern Ireland goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell to Daniel Ballard allowed Alexandar Kolev to nip in and cross for Bulgaria skipper Kiril Despodov to tap in from close range.
It was a poor goal to concede and left Northern Ireland in third place in the League C3 table on three points behind Belarus, who won 1-0 in Luxembourg today, and Bulgaria who both have four. O’Neill’s team face the top two next month.
“I don’t want to use excuses but the pitch was probably the worst I’ve played on at international level,” said McNair.
“It was horrendous. I think it was the worst pitch I’ve played on professionally.”
Asked if he felt surfaces like that should be allowed to be used in international football, McNair replied: “No. Definitely not. I’ve never seen a pitch cut up so easily in my life. As I say I don’t want to use it as an excuse and it was the same for both teams but I don’t think it is ideal.”
On the goal that ultimately decided the contest, the new San Diego FC signing, currently on loan at West Brom, insisted that there would be no blame game in the Northern Ireland camp and it was up to everyone to take it on the chin.
“It was one of those where you just have to get on with it,” he said.
“Nine times out of 10 it could work. It is disappointing and it happens. I don’t think it is a case of pointing fingers at anyone. We have all been there. We win as a team and we lose as a team.”
On the match overall, former Manchester United ace McNair added: “It was disappointing. They obviously started the game very well and we didn’t get a foothold in the first 15 to 20 minutes. I thought we grew into it a bit more and obviously the goal before half-time was a sucker punch. It happens.”
McNair made the point that a sign of the growth of O’Neill’s young side was that they didn’t go under after going behind and improved in the second period.
“If you look at games like Finland and Slovenia (in the Euro 2024 qualifiers) when we conceded one goal and then conceded others (in 4-0 and 4-2 defeats) I can’t remember Bulgaria having a shot after they scored. I know we didn’t create too much but it is a game of small margins.
“Stuff like the goal we conceded happens so the confidence won’t be low going into next month. It wasn’t a bad performance.
“There are still four games to play and in October we have Belarus in Hungary and Bulgaria at home, so in a couple of games the table could look completely different.”
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