Michael ONeill admits Northern Irelands qualification hopes are over

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Michael ONeill admitted Northern Irelands Euro 2024 hopes are over after Thursdays 4-2 qualifying defeat to Slovenia left them adrift towards the bottom of Group H.A fourth straight defeat left a six-point gap between Sundays opponents Kazakhstan in fourth place and Northern Ireland in fifth, with nine points separating them from leaders Finland.Although not mathematically over, both the size of the deficit and the number of teams involved make it difficult to see a path to qualification.Weve just got to finish as high as po sible, O Jack Roslovic Jersey Neill said. Qualification now, I think if we won all five games (remaining) it wouldnt be enough. Im not going to sit here and say While its mathematically po sible and things like that.Were trying to develop a team here. Its a young team, a team thats ravaged by injuries. Our chance in this group probably was to get momentum in the early part and we didnt do that unfortunately.Now weve got to make sure we finish the group strong and so we can carry that forward for the preparations for the next tournament.Northern Ireland played positively, enjoying more po se sion and more chances than Slovenia, but left the door open at the back for Andraz Sporar and Benjamin Sesko to exploit.I thought Trai Hume, Shea Charles were excellent, Isaac Price getting his first goal, theyre all real positives, ONeill said. Thats three young players who could all have played for the under-21s. Some of the senior boys put in a good performance as well George Saville had a very good game as well.We will look at the game and some of things we did that were poor in the game but well focus as well on a lot of things we did well and well be ready to give it a go again on Sunday night. Teppo Numminen Jersey Northern Irelands injury headache got worse, with Ciaron Brown forced off after being hurt in the build-up to Slovenias second goal before his replacement, Craig Cathcart, hobbled off late on.Ciaron will be an extreme doubt (for Sunday), hes twisted his ankle which led to the second goal, a deflected goal, so there was a little bit of misfortune for us there on a couple of counts, ONeill said.Craig, his groin was tight so well see how he reacts. Weve got a long flight to Astana to deal with and well just have to a se s the players probably before we go.Northern Irelands qualifying campaign has been all downhill since the opening win over San Marino in March, with the relentle s run of injuries depriving ONeill of some of his most effective dre sing room leaders.Asked how he could pick his side up after this latest setback, ONeill said: I dont think that will be difficult. Theres a sense of realism in the dre sing room about where we are as a group at the minute.I think the bigger concern is if you going into the games feeling youre inferior to the opposition. We dont feel that in this group. The results have been disappointing for us obviously. Its been well documented about the players that are unavailable to us.I think this group of players will be clearly a lot better of the experience of what theyre dealing with at the minute. For the younger ones in particular playing two games in the space of three days Shawn Matthias Jersey , both away from home, for many of them its their first experience of that.Thats the nature of international football and trying to qualify. We feel we due more points than the points that we have but we have to accept where we are at this minute in time and make sure that we finish as strongly as we can in the group.
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