Northern Ireland squad has strengthened in international window – Ian Baraclough

Ian Baraclough has come out of this international window confident he has strengthened his Northern Ireland squad ahead of June’s quadruple-header in the Nations League.

Although Tuesday’s friendly against Hungary ended in a 1-0 defeat, it has not often been the case that a Northern Ireland manager could make nine changes from a victory and get a better performance, but that is what Baraclough did following Friday’s 3-1 win over Luxembourg.

And the former under-21s boss made it 10 players he has now awarded a senior debut to as Fleetwood winger Paddy Lane started the match and Sunderland’s Trai Hume came on and almost scored late on.

“We’ve got a group of players now where whoever we put out as our starting 11 we know we can be strong, that’s what’s coming out of this,” Baraclough said. “Again we’ve swelled our numbers.”

International friendlies are notorious for petering out as a rash of second-half substitutions can break up a team’s rhythm.

But in Luxembourg last week it was second-half substitutes Steven Davis and Gavin Whyte who got the winning goals for Northern Ireland, and on Tuesday, replacements Hume, Shayne Lavery, George Saville and Dion Charles all went close to levelling – suggesting a growing strength-in-depth.

“We always talk about having impact players coming off the bench,” Baraclough said. “They can be disappointed not to start, you saw all of them desperate to get on and make an impact and they all did in some fashion.

“It’s really pleasing to have that in our armour. Nobody’s sulked, nobody’s thought they should have been starting ahead of somebody else and that’s what you need. It’s pleasing we can make changes and it didn’t distort us.”

Lane, 21, impressed from the start as he completed a