Michael O'Neill lauds 'fantastic performance' as Northern Ireland see off Norway
Monday 20 April 2020 09:20, UK
Michael O'Neill has lauded Northern Ireland's 2-0 win against Norway as a "fantastic performance" as they maintain their second place Group C spot.
Jamie Ward put the hosts ahead inside two minutes at Windsor Park with a fine curling strike before Conor Washington netted his third goal in three home starts just after the half-an-hour mark to seal another World Cup qualifying win.
It leaves Northern Ireland with 10 points just behind top of the table Germany and two points ahead of the Czech Republic in third, with another good shift from O'Neill's men.
"It was a fantastic performance. I thought every player that we used, we couldn't have asked any more of them," he told Sky Sports following the victory.
"It was a competitive game, Norway played very directly and we had to deal with that. You look at the players, the likes of Gareth McAuley who had a bad knock but stayed on the pitch with one or two other bumps and bruises but I thought we competed fantastically and we played some very good football.
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"We came under a little bit of pressure before half-time and we dropped Ward down the side… We also have three really good centre-halves, Premier League quality centre-halves, and we just looked really strong.
"It's a great result for us, a great position with 10 points. We look forward to the game in June, a difficult game away in Azerbaijan but we know that a win there will put us six points clear of them, we're seven points clear of Norway now so we're looking at the Czech Republic and I'm sure they're looking at us."
Northern Ireland are on course to secure a spot at their first World Cup since 1986 following their maiden European Championships in France last year, with O'Neill already taking plenty of positives from the qualification campaign so far.
"There is still a lot of football to be played but when you are at this point with five games and four clean sheets and the only team to score us are the world champions, we've scored ten goals at home so there are a lot of positives in this campaign," he added.
"We just want to maintain the form that we're in and when Germany and the Czech Republic come here, we'll have some special nights to look forward to."
