O’neill warns of long road ahead for young squad
MICHAEL O’NEILL knows there will be no quick fix to Northern Ireland’s problems after his young side were beaten 4-0 by Finland to make it seven defeats from nine in their Euro 2024 qualifiers.
An encouraging first 40 minutes in Helsinki unravelled after Isaac Price conceded a penalty shortly before the break.
It ended up being the heaviest defeat of what has already been a gruelling campaign, ruined by a crippling injury list, in which the only respite has come with home and away wins over minnows San Marino.
“We came into the group as a pot-five team and we will finish as a pot-five team,” O’neill said.
“We are in the third tier of European football now in terms of where we are in the Nations League as well, and that is where we are.
“We are going to have to build a team from this point and try and build it forward. We have slipped from where we were previously, that is pretty evident to see.
“We’ve lost a lot of experienced players over the last three years but also we have lost a lot of experienced players specific to this campaign and that is really damaging.
“We just have to try and build a team.
“It is not going to be easy, we don’t have players on the outside. We need some of the experienced players back to give us a hand, but there is no there is no short-term fix for where we are.”
Ross Mccausland made his debut from the start in Helsinki with Michael Forbes coming on as a late substitute to earn his first cap, taking the number of players to have featured for Northern
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Ireland in this campaign to a staggering 33.
In that context O’neill insisted Northern Ireland had not under-performed but admitted he needed to reflect on some of his own decisions when it came to the number of young players he had used.
“I think we have to be realistic with the age of some of these players, their club experience as well,” the former Stoke boss added.
“And probably the most difficult thing is that on the field we have maybe not had enough experience around those players.
“If I have been guilty, maybe I have to look at myself and think, ‘Have I put too many of the younger players in together too often?’ Possibly that has been the case, so I will evaluate that as well.”
Their final group game comes at Windsor Park tomorrow against Denmark.
“You have to go in with the belief that we can take something at home,” said O’neill. “We have just got to continue to try to prepare the team as best we can.”