Price netted his ninth international goal in the first half on Tuesday to earn a 1-0 friendly victory at home to Iceland setting up Michael O’Neill’s squad perfectly for the crunch double header in three months.
West Brom star Price has become a proven matchwinner for his country with his sublime first half effort taking him alongside icons George Best, Billy Bingham, Norman Whiteside and Gareth McAuley on the international scoring charts. He’s got there in just 22 appearances and is determined to keep adding to his tally.
“To be named among those players is obviously a massive achievement for me,” said the 21-year-old.
“But I want to go and get more. I want to go and achieve more. I’ll look to do that in the future.
“When you’re scoring and go over to the fans and see the joy on their faces that’s what you play football for. It’s a crazy feeling and yeah, I want to carry on doing it.”
Northern Ireland’s Isaac Price and Brodie Spencer embrace following the Iceland match
Praising manager O’Neill, after becoming the youngest Northern Ireland player to reach nine goals, Price added: “A lot of it is down to Michael. I’ve been lucky enough to play a lot of games so young, probably when a lot of other managers wouldn’t have played me.
“He’s put a lot of trust in me. I’ve played on a regular basis and I think the more I play, the more confident I feel. He’s seen me as a player that’s a goal threat.
“I’ve probably not had a manager that’s told me that before. I feel like I’ve always been a No.8 or a little bit deeper, trying to get on the ball more.
“But when I come here, he’s seen something in me that I probably didn’t see in myself.
“Also the ball seems to drop to me quite a lot and I think it’s something about Windsor.”
When Brodie Spencer was red carded in the 57th minute, Price had to help out at the back including clearing a goalbound effort from Iceland off the line.
“I think the ball just hit me in the head,” he said smiling.
“Obviously it is never easy when you go down to 10 men, but it’s probably good for us when we go to a place like Germany, where it’s going to feel like we have a man less.
“The quality they’ve got, we’re going to have to set up in a different way and we’re probably not going to have a lot of the ball and that’s what we had to deal with when we were down to 10 (versus Iceland). I think we’ve shown that we’re more than capable of that. So yeah, I think it benefited us really.”
Price is off to Marbella for a well-deserved holiday when no doubt the matches in September will cross his mind.
Asked if this new era Northern Ireland side is ready to take on the world, the former Everton ace said: “Definitely. We’ve got a great young side. We are young, but we’ve got a lot of caps between us as well and we don’t really fear anything.
Northern Ireland’s Isaac Price celebrates scoring against Iceland
“We’ll look forward to going into those games. We know it’s going to be tough especially when you have to go to a team like Germany. We know their quality. We’ve witnessed that but I don’t think we’ll roll over. We’ve got enough in our side to go and compete and maybe we need a little bit of luck as well.
“As a team we know we need to retain the ball better because ultimately when you play the top teams, you can’t give them all the ball, otherwise they’ll punish you.
“I know I also need to work on my game and improve in different areas. I’m the first person to say that I don’t think I was that good against Iceland in terms of my performance, but the goal probably helped it.”
Price, now one of the senior players in the squad, was impressed by the country’s latest debutant Ronan Hale on Tuesday evening.
“Yes, definitely. It was his debut and he’s come in a little bit later than the rest of the lads that have been here but I think he has settled in unbelievably,” said the Baggies star.
“I thought against Iceland he was great. Sometimes it gets overlooked when maybe a striker doesn’t score a goal but the work rate that he put in was magnificent and I don’t think he’s done himself any harm for the future.”
In keeping with the spirit in the side, Price’s team-mates were glowing in praise of him.
Captain Trai Hume said: “He’s been excellent, I say to him now when he scores I don’t want to celebrate with him because he’s scoring every time he plays.
“It’s great to see. You need that in teams if you want to have a chance of qualifying. You just look at Kyle Lafferty in Euro 2016 qualifying, he was scoring goals non-stop. Isaac will keep on scoring, I’ve no doubt about that.”
Justin Devenny added: “Isaac’s quality is amazing. You see it in training and no matter how the game is going if the ball falls to Isaac you know there’s a bit of magic in him.”
Northern Ireland’s Isaac Price scoring against Iceland in front of the The Kop
O’Neill said: “I don’t think there are too many players who have come into international football and adapted to it as quickly as Isaac. He has that ability to do something a little bit different and special, and the goal against Iceland was an example of that.
“When you’ve got that type of player who scores goals and has technical ability, you are always concerned about their off the ball play but for him it’s not a problem and he seems to relish it as much as the other side of the game.
“Two things — intelligence and athleticism. They are big. There is a technical level there but he’s an intelligent boy. He understands the game and if you give him an instruction he is able to do it.
“He is a very easy player to coach and I think that’s the biggest attribute he has. If you are looking at the profile of a modern day footballer, we’d maybe like to see him a few kilograms heavier, but given his size, and his ability to run he has all the attributes you want in a young player.”
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