I’ll Trai to fit them both in my team

BY

MICHAEL O’NEILL says team selection will come down to the opposition Northern Ireland are facing as he looks to accommodate talented young defenders Trai Hume and Conor Bradley.

The duo have both had impressive seasons – Bradley on loan at Bolton and Hume (above) in his debut campaign with Sunderland following his switch from Linfield.

With both playing on the right-hand side of defence there are fears it could develop into a similar situation as Scotland with Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney fighting it out for one left-back berth.

“They both play in slightly different positions for their club,” said the Northern Ireland boss. “Trai is a right-back and that’s where he predominantly played for Sunderland but he was asked to play centreback in the play-offs. I saw him play there against Luton and I thought he did very well in the game.

“Conor’s playing as a wing-back so it depends on the system that we play. We feel that one of our main challenges at the minute is we are lacking wide players who are playing regularly at a high level.

“We have good centre-halves playing at a good level so when we went three at the back and the system that we played, it lent itself to using wing-backs which Conor has been playing week in and week out.

“I thought he was more suited for the last game than Trai. But Trai will play an awful lot for Northern Ireland over the years because he’s come in and handled the situation at Sunderland terrifically.

“He’s played a number of positions, he looks established and a real leader in that team with how he plays.

“We will see what solutions there are to have the strongest team on the pitch as we can.

“It would be nice to see young players like that in the team but we have to look at the challenge in terms of the opposition and what we feel we need for each individual game.”

Both players are set to be included for the UEFA Euro 2024 qualifiers against Denmark and Kazakhstan next month.