Michael O’Neill salutes 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.

Five-star display from Northern Ireland