Michael O’Neill hails Northern Ireland hero Kyle Lafferty
Tuesday 8 September 2015 09:29, UK
Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill admits he toyed with the idea of replacing Kyle Lafferty before the forward scored his side’s crucial equaliser in their 1-1 draw with Hungary.
Lafferty is yet to feature for club side Norwich City this season, but netted his seventh goal of the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign to keep his country on course for a place in the finals in France.
He spent the second half of last season on loan at Turkish side Rizespor and has trained with the Canaries only a handful of times due to a knee injury.
Lafferty's lack of match conditioning almost saw him substituted at Windsor Park, but that idea disappeared as soon as Richard Guzmics put the visitors in front after a handling error by goalkeeper Michael McGovern.
"Kyle gives the squad belief and there's no greater testament to that than what we saw here," said O'Neill, whose side remain top of Group F with two games to play.
"We were taking Kyle off at 0-0 but by the time we were ready to make the change it was 1-0 and it suddenly changed.
"Kyle hasn't played a single minute of club football this season, or in pre-season, and he was really struggling. We just felt he couldn't give us any more. But the thing about taking off Kyle is you're taking off your talisman.
"If I'm the opposition manager I'm happy to see Kyle going off so we didn't want to give them that hope or satisfaction.
"At 1-0 it was essential to keep him on the pitch. He treaded water for the last 20-25 minutes but he was there at the right time."
Hungary now need to win their two remaining matches to deny Northern Ireland a top-two finish, while one more victory will be enough to confirm qualification for O'Neill's side.
Lafferty, though, will miss next month's home match with Greece after picking up his third booking of the campaign.
Conor McLaughlin suffered the same fate but O'Neill is pondering an appeal over Chris Baird's red card after the Derby captain was cautioned for two separate tackles in the same passage of play.
"In my whole time in football I've never seen a player booked twice in that situation. We'll have to look at that very closely," he said.
"There's no doubt he should be booked for the second tackle but if he knows he's being booked for the first he won't make the next tackle.
"I can't pretend I know the rules well enough to say if it's legitimate or not but I think it's a very, very harsh decision. For a player to be sent off like that could have cost us a place at the finals."
