Northern Ireland’s return to the second tier of the UEFA Nations League has been founded on defensive solidity, and Monday’s 0-0 draw with Hungary at Windsor Park added another layer to it. After successive campaigns in League C, Michael O’Neill’s side have opened their first 180 minutes back at this level with back-to-back clean sheets.
Two star names, four days apart, have been unable to find a way through. In Tbilisi last week, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Georgia were frustrated by a player-of-the-match performance from goalkeeper Pierce Charles, who saved a penalty from the Ballon d’Or nominee in a 1-0 win. Back in Belfast against Dominik Szoboszlai and Hungary, Charles barely had a save to make, with the visitors’ first shot on target arriving in the 90th minute.
Hungary became the eighth opposition team to fail to score at Windsor Park in the past 10 games, with only Germany and Switzerland bucking the trend. “There’s a lot for us to be positive about,” said O’Neill. “It’s two clean sheets in the group, eight clean sheets out of ten games. I am proud of how they played tonight, they couldn’t have given us any more.”
The clean sheet was all the more impressive given the absence of Daniel Ballard. The Sunderland defender picked up a hamstring injury in Tbilisi and has been ruled out for the remainder of the window. Ruairi McConville came in against Hungary and performed well in the back three alongside Ciaron Brown and Tom Atcheson. Oxford United’s Brown, perhaps a surprise starter for some in Tbilisi, more than justified his selection against Georgia and backed it up on Monday. “Ciaron has been terrific now for quite some time,” O’Neill said. “He’s very reliable. He’s playing his club football at the moment in League One, he’s a better player than that. He’s left-sided, he’s competitive, he has a long throw. He has a lot of attributes that, for me, means he should be playing at a higher level than the club level he’s playing.”
With Hull City’s Paddy McNair yet to start in this four-game window, and Trai Hume and Brodie Spencer other options at centre-back, defensive depth has become a real strength of this side — arguably the strongest since Jonny Evans, Gareth McAuley, Aaron Hughes and Craig Cathcart were Premier League regulars a decade ago.
At the other end of the pitch, Northern Ireland remain a work in progress. They were the markedly better team in the first half against Hungary but appeared to tire as the game wore on after a 5,000-mile round trip to Tbilisi, and they struggled to create chances throughout. Opta put their expected goals on Monday night at just 0.55, their lowest in a Nations League game since September 2022. Record goalscorer David Healy pointed to a lack of threat from set-pieces, with Balazs Toth easily gathering a few corners, and noted that the presence of Ballard in the opposing box was missed too. “The set pieces were really poor,” Healy said. “We pride ourselves in them but we did not threaten at all. Overall, coming away with a clean sheet against the opposition, O’Neill will be pleased. The frustration will be if we had been bang at it, it was an opportunity.”
Jamie Donley, on loan at Luton Town from Tottenham Hotspur, again led the line but did not have much in the way of opportunities. Isaac Price and Patrick Kelly started in behind the striker, with the latter hitting the bar in the first half, and were backed up by a trio of promising yet untried teenagers, none of whom were brought on in a second half when Hungary wrestled back control. “When we look at the top end of the pitch, we’re looking at much younger players,” O’Neill said. “Kieran Morrison, Ceadach O’Neill, Braiden Graham — we don’t have the same options in terms of what we can do at the top end of the pitch, in terms of experience, and being a little bit more accustomed to international football and first-team football.”
It should be remembered that O’Neill is still without Conor Bradley, who has missed the past six games through the serious knee injury he sustained with Liverpool in January and is expected to miss the rest of this Nations League campaign. Northern Ireland have scored 24 times in Bradley’s past 16 caps, but only six times in the nine games played without him during that span. Even allowing for the small and spread sample sizes international football affords, replacing his attacking impetus remains O’Neill’s biggest short-term challenge — and the Hungarian stalemate showed it again, even as his side’s defensive solidity offered a platform to build on.