Michael O’Neill rued mistakes in Northern Ireland’s defence after they fell to a 3-1 World Cup qualifying loss to Germany despite impressing for long periods in Cologne.
A superb strike from Isaac Price cancelled out Serge Gnabry’s early goal for Germany and Northern Ireland finished the first half as the stronger side with the hosts’ nerves showing after a run of three-consecutive defeats.
But a defensive mix-up allowed Germany substitute Nadiem Amiri to put them back in front in the 69th minute before Florian Wirtz’s free-kick – three minutes later – put it to bed.
Both of Germany’s first two goals were preventable from Northern Ireland’s perspective.
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’s long ball forward, following the run of Maximilian Beier and allowing Amiri to finish easily.
It said plenty about the progress of Michael O’Neill’s team that they left the RheinEnergieSTADION disappointed, but it was an emotion the manager struggled to shake, despite the positives on show.
“When we look back at the goals tonight we’ll be disappointed,” he said. “I 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’s going for a one-v-one with the goalkeeper.
“The second goal is a little bit fortuitous, it’s 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’s an easy finish.”
Wirtz then sealed it with a superb free-kick after Ali McCann was deemed to have fouled Amiri, a decision O’Neill took issue with.
“The third goal is an amazing goal, an unbelievable free-kick,” he said of Wirtz’s ‘knuckleball’ finish.
“But it’s 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.
“The Germans will be trying to get through the game and we can try some passing situations. So it is disappointing because I didn’t think it was a free-kick at all.”
Amid his frustration there were plenty of positives to take from this performance as O’Neill looks to the rest of the campaign, not least Germany’s visit to Belfast next month.
“I thought we showed a lot tonight,” he said. “We had to against a very strong team. We knew what type of game it would be, particularly losing a goal so early.
“I thought we showed a really good reaction and we were well in the game for 60-65 minutes.
“Prior 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.
“There’s a lot of things for us to be positive about but it’s 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.”
