Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
NOUGHTY BUT NICE
O’neill admits side is struggling for goals but insists their good football is creating the chances and will soon pay dividends
MICHAEL O’NEILL insists that Northern Ireland’s toothless attack is not cause for alarm heading into tonight’s derby dust-up in Dublin.
Seven blanks in 10 games and a pop-gun ratio of a goal every 150 minutes dating back 13 months does not make for pretty reading.
But O’neill is a long way off declaring a state of emergency and believes it’s only a matter of time before his team’s luck changes in front of goal.
“I’d be more concerned if we weren’t creating chances,” he said. “I think it will rectify itself and hopefully we can do that this week.” Referencing an infamous 1,298 minutes goal drought under former boss Sammy Mcilroy in the early-2000s, he added: “Northern Ireland have gone long periods of time before without scoring goals – so we’re not at that stage.”
On chances created, O’neill has a point.
In their last four games Northern Ireland have fashioned 60 goal scoring opportunities but only 19 were on target with a net result of four goals.
Three of those came in a 3-0 friendly win over Israel, while misfortune and wastefulness fed into Nations League defeats to Austria in Vienna and Bosnia home and away. “If we look back at Bosnia in Sarajevo, we hit the post three times and in Austria we also had opportunities,” said O’neill.
“I’m not a big one to talk about luck or rub of the green but in our last two campaigns we won our group and finished second, yet in our three Nations League games we’ve arguably created as many chances.
“From that perspective I’m not that concerned because all we need to do is find someone to put the ball into the net. If we weren’t creating, that would be more of an issue.”
If Northern Ireland are craving a goal rush, both at the Aviva Stadium and in Sunday’s final Nations League fixture at
home to Austria, the Republic are in the same boat.
The six strikers available to Martin O’neill for this month’s double-header boast just one goal – scored by Millwall’s Aiden O’brien – and 12 caps between them.
The loss of Southampton’s Shane Long to a hamstring injury is a definite setback to an attack that lacks both potency and experience on the international stage.
“Martin’s squad is in transition like ours,” said O’neill, “I do think Shane Long not being available to them is a blow.
“But we’ll have to deal with players coming in with a real enthusiasm to play, players that want to prove themselves at international level. Much like our players as well.
“With that comes a threat, an eagerness to do well. That eagerness to take an opportunity is something we’ll have to match.” O’neill is also reading nothing into the Republic’s recent record of just one win and five defeats in their last nine outings dating back to the end of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
“They are an incredibly hard-working team,” warned the 49-year-old. “Even in the results that have gone against them, it’s not been for a lack of endeavour, commitment or workrate.
“It’s maybe been down to the quality of the opposition. Both teams are in a similar situation at the moment and we expect a tough game.”