Evans: To get to the World Cup would be the pinnacle

JONNY IS DREAMING OF RUSSIA

JONNY EVANS says it would be the pinnacle of his international career to reach next summer’s World Cup finals with Northern Ireland.

The West Bromwich Albion captain also believes it will be near impossible to keep Michael O’neill as manager if the Green and White Army marches on Russia.

O’neill’s men sealed at least a runners-up finish behind Germany in Group C – and potential play-off – with a crucial 2-0 win over the Czech Republic.

And Evans, who headed the opener for his first international goal in eight years, is eager to help the country reach its first World Cup since 1986.

On the prospect of playing at back-to-back tournaments following last summer’s Euro 2016 adventure, the Baggies defender said: “It would be the pinnacle.

“After the highs of the Euros, Michael spoke to us about the challenge of being motivated to push ourselves even further.

“Qualifying for a World Cup would probably be a bigger achievement, but we are still very proud of what we did in reaching the last-16 in France.”

Asked if it will be “difficult” for the Irish FA to keep O’neill (below) to the end of his current contract in 2020 if Northern Ireland reach Russia, Evans said: “I think so.

“I think we are all surprised he hasn’t moved on by now and we’d be happy for him if he did, but that’s to our benefit now.”

With eight best runners-up from the nine UEFA groups featuring in November’s play-offs, Evans suspects very few teams will fancy coming to Windsor if or when Northern Ireland’s participation is confirmed.

He said: “Who is going to want to play against us? We are a really difficult team and we have some really strong, physical players on the break. Teams won’t like playing against that. “Our biggest strength is our character. I got man of the match, but Aaron Hughes was a machine and he was dragging me through the game. Conor Mclaughlin was absolutely outstanding. “There are so many players, the likes of Josh Magennis, Steven Davis... a lot of the lads are playing the best football of their career and it’s great for Northern Ireland.”

While the Czech Republic bossed 70 per cent of possession, Karel Jarolim’s men never looked like denying Northern Ireland a seventh clean sheet in eight pool games.

Evans said: “We didn’t play well, but we were so comfortable and we didn’t really feel like they were ever going to trouble us.

“They had to take the game to us, but they didn’t do enough to test us. They had a lot of possession, but we never felt they were going to break us down.

“They didn’t really test Michael Mcgovern that much. He didn’t have many saves to make. That’s credit to our workrate and ability to get up to the ball.

“The lads in midfield worked tremendously hard, shifting across the pitch, not just jogging, proper sprinting.

“It takes character to do that for 90 minutes and all credit to the lads for putting that performance in. It’s nice to keep clean sheets but the most important thing is scoring goals.”

On his first goal in a green shirt since scoring in a 3-2 win over Poland in a World Cup qualifier in March 2009, Evans said: “It’s been quite a while since I scored one!

“Big Gareth (Mcauley) has scored a few for us in recent times and taken the limelight, but he wasn’t here tonight, so I thought I had to step up.”