Michael O’Neill wants Northern Ireland’s first-half performance against Belarus on Saturday night to serve as a blueprint going forward – even if they did not get their rewards in a goalless Nations League draw in Hungary.
The opening 45 minutes saw Northern Ireland pour forward with 12 attempts at goal, seeing two strikes disallowed and an Eoin Toal header come back off the post as they did everything but score.
Conor Bradley – captain on the night – again delivered a performance full of attacking intent, Trai Hume played a series of excellent passes from the right side of defence to free his team-mates, while Isaac Price and Callum Marshall were full of running in the forward positions.
As this young Northern Ireland team continues to develop, O’Neill sees long-term progress even if the results are not always there in the short term.
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“We’ve worked very hard, we’ve been consistent with the system of play, we’ve been consistent with how we build the game with the back three, how we try and work patterns of play with two 10s behind a solitary striker,” O’Neill told the PA news agency.
“We’ve got speed on the sides with Jamal (Lewis) and Conor. At the minute we probably function a bit better on the right than on the left so there’s work to be done.
“But what we did well was when the ball turned over we got around the ball, we competed well against more experienced, older players. Shea (Charles) was very good out of possession, him and George (Saville) won a lot of ball back.
“Overall that’s the type of team we want to be. We want to play with speed but play with composure as well, so we’ll take a lot of positives from how we played, although obviously we’re disappointed we didn’t score.”
The average age of Northern Ireland’s starting XI fell even further with 19-year-old Pierce Charles, brother of Shea, getting the nod in goal in the absence of injured regular Bailey Peacock-Farrell.
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The Sheffield Wednesday keeper did not have too many saves to make behind a defence that did well without Daniel Ballard, but his much talked about distribution was on show, particularly in that opening half.
O’Neill did not tell Charles he would be starting until Friday’s final training session, but said he had made the decision earlier in the week, seeing the game behind closed doors in Zalaegerszeg as a low-pressure opportunity to give him his debut.
“I’ll be honest that it was in my head regardless of Bailey’s situation because I felt the game would give us an opportunity to see Pierce play,” he said.
“He played very well in the under-21s, he’s played very well in the under-19s, we’ve had him in and he gave a very assured performance.
“His distribution is well noted and well talked about but as a goalkeeper you have to have more than that and he knows that. But I thought his choice of passes gave a real assurance to the back three.”
Northern Ireland will now fly home to face Bulgaria at Windsor Park, looking to make amends for their 1-0 defeat in Plovdiv last month.
Asked about the challenge they represent when compared to Belarus, O’Neill said: “I don’t think it will be too different.
“They maybe have a little bit more in terms of one or two individuals, but if we play with the same composure and the same intensity I think we’ll give them a lot of problems and that’s what we have to do.”