Michael O\u2019Neill rued mistakes in Northern Ireland\u2019s defence after they fell to a 3-1 World Cup qualifying loss to Germany despite impressing for long periods in Cologne.<\/p>\n
A superb strike from Isaac Price cancelled out Serge Gnabry\u2019s early goal for Germany and Northern Ireland finished the first half as the stronger side with the hosts\u2019 nerves showing after a run of three-consecutive defeats.<\/p>\n
But a defensive mix-up allowed Germany substitute Nadiem Amiri to put them back in front in the 69th minute before Florian Wirtz\u2019s free-kick \u2013 three minutes later \u2013 put it to bed.<\/p>\n
Both of Germany\u2019s first two goals were preventable from Northern Ireland\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n
Eoin Toal lost possession for the opener, allowing Nick Woltemade to find the run of Gnabry, while the second came when no one dealt with David Raum\u2019s long ball forward, following the run of Maximilian Beier and allowing Amiri to finish easily.<\/p>\n
It said plenty about the progress of Michael O\u2019Neill\u2019s team that they left the RheinEnergieSTADION disappointed, but it was an emotion the manager struggled to shake, despite the positives on show.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we look back at the goals tonight we\u2019ll be disappointed,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought the first goal, we need to deal with that ball better in the middle of the pitch. It drops quickly and with one pass, Gnabry\u2019s going for a one-v-one with the goalkeeper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second goal is a little bit fortuitous, it\u2019s just a ball played into the box and again we should defend that better. The bounce of the ball catches out the two centre-backs and the goalkeeper and it\u2019s an easy finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wirtz then sealed it with a superb free-kick after Ali McCann was deemed to have fouled Amiri, a decision O\u2019Neill took issue with.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe third goal is an amazing goal, an unbelievable free-kick,\u201d he said of Wirtz\u2019s \u2018knuckleball\u2019 finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s not a free-kick at all. I thought in the second-half the referee was fussy and the award of that free-kick was disappointing because at 2-1, we can get into the final phase of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Germans will be trying to get through the game and we can try some passing situations. So it is disappointing because I didn\u2019t think it was a free-kick at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid his frustration there were plenty of positives to take from this performance as O\u2019Neill looks to the rest of the campaign, not least Germany\u2019s visit to Belfast next month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we showed a lot tonight,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had to against a very strong team. We knew what type of game it would be, particularly losing a goal so early.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we showed a really good reaction and we were well in the game for 60-65 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrior to the game we talked about playing the game in 15-minute sections and I thought if we could have got to that last 15 minutes with the score as it was, I think we would possibly get an opportunity ourselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things for us to be positive about but it\u2019s hard to see that at this moment because I think the overwhelming emotion is disappointment because we had the opportunity to maybe take more than we did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael O\u2019Neill rued mistakes in Northern Ireland\u2019s defence after they fell to a 3-1 World Cup qualifying loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824,74744,76282,87203,8439],"class_list":{"0":"post-407377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-n-ireland","12":"tag-place-northern-ireland","13":"tag-place-uk","14":"tag-quotes"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115167772260462561","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}