O’Neill is ready ‘to do the right thing’
Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill’s team selection against Norway will not change, even if their play-off place is confirmed before kick-off in Oslo this evening.
O’Neill’s side have already secured second place in Group C, with eight of the group runners-up advancing to November’s play-offs, and Northern Ireland will be assured of one of those berths if Greece failed to beat Cyprus last night.
Even if that does not materialise, a draw or defeat for Scotland at Slovenia in today’s earlier kick-off would also book Northern Ireland a two-legged tie next month.
O’Neill has six players which are one caution away from missing that potential first leg, so some prior knowledge about their play-off situation could be vital if he does not want to risk those players.
Yet O’Neill is not allowing himself to sweat on other results elsewhere, particularly with the draw for the play-offs being seeded and the preparation time he has.
“It was great for us to secure second place, but we’ve never felt that was necessarily going to be enough,” he said in Oslo.
“We didn’t celebrate after the game against Czech Republic, we were delighted to finish second in the group, but it was always in my mind we would come here needing something.
“We’ll approach the game with the intention of trying to win the game.
“We just can’t pick two teams, you couldn’t throw a team out on the pitch with less than 24 hours notice and say, ‘Go and play’.
“I can’t take chances. If the alternative is to take that chance and miss out, or go into the play-offs with players missing through suspension, I have to do the right thing and the right thing is to try and win the game.
“We spoke to the players earlier about it, and said, ‘Look, the scenario is this – if we can win the game it strengthens our hand in terms of will we be seeded or not,’ that’s a big incentive as well.
“We just can’t approach it with anything other than the mentality to try to win the game.
“We’ve had two days between the games and one of them is the travel day, this is our first meaningful training session where we get an hour on the pitch.
“We can’t say, ‘If the game finishes like this we’ll play with this team, if the game finishes like this we’ll play with this team’.
“We will prepare regardless of what happens elsewhere.”