Browsing: ONeill

Although O’Neill resigned in April 2020 to take charge of Stoke, his absence lasted only 28 internationals and he returned to the post in December 2022.

The group to which he returned, however, was radically different to the one he left.

Injury ended the international careers of Steven Davis and Dallas earlier than expected, while the retirements of Jonny Evans and Craig Cathcart robbed the group of yet more experienced campaigners.

Leading such a young group presented a different challenge to his first spell, but the impact of O’Neill’s previous time in charge still counted in his favour.

“You saw the success that he had before and he’s a massive name back home,” said Liverpool’s Conor Bradley who has been given a leadership role in the team by O’Neill.

“He’s a special manager. He gives you confidence going into games, and it’s a big part of management to be able to do that, but tactically as well he’s top notch.”

Bingham gave O’Neill his international debut in February 1988 when he was still just 18-years-old and only four months after Newcastle United had signed him from Irish League side Coleraine.

With his new-look Northern Ireland side built around young talents like Bradley, Isaac Price, Shea Charles and Justin Devenny, O’Neill feels the belief shown in him as a teenager has proven instructive to his approach to international management.

“Billy put a lot of faith in me and maybe the fact that he put that faith in me has influenced me to put faith in young players as well,” he said.

One such player is Isaac Price who was given his international debut as a 19-year-old who had played just 13 senior minutes for Everton.

“He’s been perfect for me. He brought me in at a time he didn’t have to,” said Price, who later moved to Standard Liege and is now with West Brom.

“I was playing under-23s football at Everton and he saw something in me he thought he could use and develop.”

Price became the youngest player to score 10 times for Northern Ireland when he netted against Germany in the 3-1 defeat last month.

The 22-year-old had missed a penalty against Luxembourg three days prior to scoring in Cologne and credits a brief exchange with O’Neill as vital in quickly moving on from his poor performance.

“You’ve missed a penalty, didn’t play very well, and it’s a bit of a low point. You feel like everything’s coming down and then you’re going to play Germany,” he added.

“The night before the game Michael comes over to me and just says ‘forget about what happened the other night, you’ll go out and do something’ and then it happens.

“That’s his experience. Michael has been around football so long, he’d have seen it with so many players. He just managed me really well.”

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O’Neill believes the win, which stretches Northern Ireland’s unbeaten streak at home to seven games, shows the maturity of his young side and how good they can be.

“I think they understand now the levels they can get to, there is still more to go with this group of players,” he added.

“Tonight, we showed what we can be like at home, we have shown this before if you look back to the Bulgaria game, but we played a better team tonight and we showed it against a very good team.”

Reluctant to single out players given so many performed well, O’Neill did praise captain on the night Bradley for being the catalyst, particularly down the right side.

“From the word ‘go’ he was magnificent, his energy, him and Ethan [Galbraith] on were terrific on that side with their link-up and quality,” O’Neill said.

“We have so many good young players who love playing together. It is difficult to pick one player, Conor does stand out because he does so many good things, it was good for him to captain the team on a night like this.”

The only dampener on a positive night for NI was that 22-year-old Liverpool full-back Bradley picked up the yellow card for a foul that will rule him out of the crucial meeting with Germany in Belfast on Monday.

O’Neill was frustrated by the decision. When asked how harsh he felt the yellow card was – Bradley’s second in three qualifiers – O’Neill said it was “extremely” so.

“I have watched it back and he tries to pull out,” O’Neill said.

“The referee, at times, it was good he didn’t want to hand out yellow cards, but if he was going to give a yellow for that he should have dished out more. Especially for the opposition.”

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O’Neill was left to lament some soft defending as a defensive mix-up allowed Amiri to pounce for Germany’s second, whilst…