YOUTH and experience is the ideal blend, but Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill is still pleased that so many with the former are getting the latter on the international scene in the absence of older heads.
The main downside of Saturday’s performance against Belarus was that superiority didn’t bring a win, only a goalless draw, but O’Neill knows that’s a lesson the young players must learn:
“I think football brings you that all the time. You play every week and sometimes you play well and don’t get rewarded. In international football that’s probably enhanced.”
That draw in neutral Hungary followed a previous 1-0 loss away to next opponents Bulgaria, but O’Neill still feels his youthful players have made advances:
“The positive for me was we had six players 21 or under, six of them could have played for Tommy Wright.
“I think the progress of those players and the responsibility they’ve taken is great -normally when you bring a young player into the team they’re aided and supported by older players, I know that personally from my own experience coming in.
“We’re not in a position to do that. We’re putting a lot of younger players in at the one time and they’re handling it extremely well.”
A strong start brought a 2-0 win at Windsor over Luxembourg last month and O’Neill feels home advantage can help again versus Bulgaria: “The important thing is we approach the game in the right way, which we did against Luxembourg.
“The opportunity to play, we haven’t had that many games since Denmark last November other than Luxembourg here at home.
“We talk about the young players, playing away from home comes with a different approach and mentality. I know the lads all looking forward to playing at home.
“We took a lot of positives from Saturday. As a coach you look beyond the result at how the team played in and out of possession. It was the longest week we’d had in terms of working and a lot of the stuff we worked hard on in Manchester we saw in the game on Saturday.”
O’Neill had particular praise for 19-year-old goalkeeper Pierce Charles, younger brother of midfielder Shea, who made an impressive senior debut:
“I thought the goalkeeper on Saturday night gave us a lot of assurance as well and his choice of pass was excellent. We know that’s a big strong point in Pierce’s game.
“It also gives you the ability to restart the game. I think it’s important the goalkeeper can relieve pressure off teams because the game is very much now about how teams are set up to press you in your own half.”
The young players he has used as captains in this Nations League, Trai Hume (22) and Conor Bradley (21) also excelled in a defence missing plenty of experience:
“I think the defence is growing all the time. We’ve lost big players like [Jonny] Evans and [Craig] Cathcart and they’re not easy players to replace, but as a group and a unit we’re compensating for that loss of quality and experience.
“We obviously had Daniel Ballard out the other night as well. Trai coming in as a right-sided centre-back and the combination he has with Conor down that side is very strong.”
O’Neill confirmed he will freshen up his team - but the change the hosts really want is to turn chances into goals.
