Michael O'Neill hails Northern Ireland's five-star showing against Bulgaria

Michael O'Neill savoured a "special night" after watching his young Northern Ireland side thrash Bulgaria 5-0 in an outstanding display that sent them top of their Nations League group.

Isaac Price stole the show with a hat-trick, crowning it with a stunning strike from the edge of the box, but O'Neill could point to brilliant individual performances all over the pitch as Northern Ireland delivered one of their most entertaining displays in recent memory.

After the frustration of Saturday night's goalless draw against Belarus in Hungary, when Northern Ireland created chance after chance but could not make them count, everything came together at Windsor Park.

"When you create chances in the game there's nights when you don't take them and nights when you do and we were very clinical," O'Neill said. "But it was more the quality of the play and the nature of the chances again which was most pleasing.

"The attitude of the team was terrific, the intensity and the quality of their play. Everyone was right at the top of their game. As a manager, I'm very proud of the performance.

"The reaction to Saturday is very important. One of the things I've been concerned about with such a young team is can they play the second game and how they adapt to play the second game and every answer I got tonight was very positive."

The 21-year-old Price swept home the opener in the 15th minute and was on hand to lash in another in the 29th minute, but the Standard Liege man's second-half strike into the top corner was the standout.

"He's scored five goals now against good opposition," O'Neill said. "Isaac is still a young player finding his position at club level. There's things in his game I know he needs to improve and he knows that himself, but he