Michael O’Neill expects tough test for Northern Ireland in Luxembourg

Michael O’Neill has warned his players he expects Monday’s Nations League promotion decider against Luxembourg to be Northern Ireland’s most difficult away game of the campaign so far.

A draw will be enough for Northern Ireland to lift themselves out of League C as Group 3 winners, and confidence is sky high in the camp with Friday’s 2-0 win over Belarus coming on the back of last month’s 5-0 rout of Bulgaria.

But O’Neill has warned against taking anything for granted against the side that sit bottom of the group standings with two points from five games.

“It would be easy to come here and think it will be an easy game,” O’Neill said after Sunday’s training session at the Stade de Luxembourg.

“I actually think it will be our most difficult away game. I think the results Luxembourg have had aren’t a reflection of where they are as a team. I think they’ve had a lot of progress under the coach (Luc Holtz) who I know well.

“They were very unlucky not to take something from the game against Bulgaria here. They’ve had the sort of campaign where they’ve missed chances at key moments in games. We expect a very tough game.”

Northern Ireland’s success so far in this campaign has been built on their record at Windsor Park, winning all three games by scoring nine and conceding none.

Away from home they lost 1-0 to Bulgaria in September before last month’s goalless draw against Belarus in Hungary.

Northern Ireland’s 2-0 win over San Marino in March 2023, O’Neill’s first game of his second spell in the job, is their only competitive away win in the last three years – a record the manager knows must change as he looks ahead to next year’s World Cup qualifiers.

This year Northern Ireland have impressed on the road in friendlies, drawing with Romania before beating Scotland, also beating Andorra after a loss to Spain, and O’Neill believes his side are in a better place to compete away from home.

“There is more resilience in the squad and more of a consistency in the squad that we didn’t have before in terms of player availability, which is a big thing as well,” he said.

“I think this team is ready to come away from home and play against good nations and win games. We get the opportunity on Monday night in a brilliant stadium and fantastic pitch, so it’s a great game for us.”

The only change to the Northern Ireland squad since Friday’s win is the loss of Ciaron Brown who, much to O’Neill’s frustration, picked up a questionable late yellow card for time-wasting against Belarus which has ruled him out of this match through suspension.

With Paddy McNair and Eoin Toal already out, and Daniel Ballard managing his fitness after six weeks out with injury, it leaves O’Neill low on depth for his favoured back three, but it is an issue he believes his squad can cope with.

“We have flexibility in our squad,” he said. “Obviously there’s young Ruairi (McConville) who came on for the last 10 minutes of the game the other night. We’ve got Kofi Balmer playing for Motherwell and he’s playing in a back three, he’s also an option.

“We’ve got Brodie (Spencer) who can play in a back three, so I think we’ll be able to compensate. It’s who we do it with. We don’t want to disrupt the team too much, so it’s a question of getting the right feel for how the back three looks, and obviously making sure as a team that it doesn’t disrupt us.

“I don’t think it will. We’re starting to get options in a lot of positions in this squad and I think we’ll be able to cope with that.”