Michael O’Neill still wants more of a cutting edge from Northern Ireland

Michael O’Neill wants to see his Northern Ireland side take another step forward in their attacking play when they face Belarus on Friday.

There was a party atmosphere at Windsor Park last month as Isaac Price bagged a hat-trick and Northern Ireland ran riot in a 5-0 win over Bulgaria that sent them to the top of their Nations League group with two games left.

But, though encouraging, O’Neill recognises that was very much the exception for a side who had scored nine goals in their previous 10 games, including a frustrating 0-0 draw with Belarus in Hungary last month.

Northern Ireland dominated the opening 45 minutes of that game, hitting a post and having two goals ruled out, but, having failed to score, they struggled to break down a more stubborn Belarus in the second half.

“I still think the biggest area of the pitch we need to improve is in the final third,” O’Neill told the PA news agency.

“We demonstrated against Bulgaria what we are capable of, but you face different challenges in international football and prior to that we struggled to break down Belarus in the second half in Hungary and we might face that from the start of the game in Belfast.

“Those are all areas where I’d like to see the team improve. A lot of that is down to individual players – you look at the best teams and the attacking players they have that can make the difference at international level. We have to do it more as a collective.

“I’ve been pleased with Dion (Charles’) performances and Jamie Reid’s performances, because it’s a big step from League One to come into international football and they’ve handled it well, but we have to continue to improve.

“We’ve got a number of younger players in those positions – Callum Marshall, Ross McCausland, Isaac Price – they are still very, very young so we’ve just got to continue to work.”

Friday’s match at Windsor Park is an opportunity to take out the frustrations suffered in Zalaegerszeg, but O’Neill recognises it will be a very different contest.

“It was an unnatural game in an empty stadium and you felt that in the game,” he said. “We played well, particularly in the first half and there were a lot of things you think were very, very good.

“If you have the energy from doing that in front of your home fans – and we will have that opportunity – all that gives you an edge to your team.

“We know we had enough chances to win the game and we should have done that. The key for us is to win our home games and to play with the same intensity and positivity as we did against Bulgaria, to replicate that.

“That has to be our benchmark for how we play at home and how the crowd will be. We have to make it intimidating for the opposition to come here and the Belarus game is another opportunity for us to do that.”

Northern Ireland are in the driving seat in League C Group 3, with their campaign concluding away to Luxembourg next week.

Promotion back to League B would cap a strong 2024 in which Northern Ireland enjoyed a friendly win over Scotland and lost only two of eight – one of those a friendly away to Spain.

As next year’s World Cup qualifiers loom, this has been a year of rapid progress from a team still full of youth.

“I don’t think we’re ahead of schedule because when there are so many young players in the team it’s hard to put a time frame on it,” O’Neill said.

“”We could have this conversation in three years time and a lot of the players will still only be 23, 24, so they’re not going to be old, but they’ll have a lot of experience.”