'Very disappointing' - Michael O'Neill frustrated at NI loss in Bulgaria

Michael O'Neill admitted the nature of Bulgaria’s winning goal made Northern Ireland’s 1-0 defeat in Plovdiv on Sunday all the more frustrating.

On a poor pitch which affected both teams, Northern Ireland had survived an early onslaught in which Ciaron Brown blocked an early shot on the line amid a goalmouth scramble and Radoslav Kirilov hit a post with a fine free-kick.

Then, five minutes before half-time, Bulgaria’s goal came gift-wrapped as Bailey Peacock-Farrell’s mistake in trying to hit a short, square pass to Daniel Ballard rather than clear his lines allowed Aleksandar Kolev to set up an easy finish for home captain Kiril Despodov.

"It’s very disappointing," O’Neill said.

"We knew it would be a tough game against a team we know have a lot of physicality, a lot of power in their team, and that was a factor in the early part of the game.

"I thought we dealt with that well but the nature of the pitch meant it was always going to be a game with more physicality in it than normal and ultimately we lost the game to a poor goal and that’s the most disappointing thing."

Bulgaria, draw specialists who began the night with only one win in 16, were just about worthy of their victory given the pressure they had applied early on, but Northern Ireland appeared to have come through the worst of it only to undo their hard work.

The pitch had begun cutting up almost as soon as the game started, hampering the flow of the match.

Under those conditions, Peacock-Farrell was in a difficult spot when Brown played the ball back to him but had a chance to kick it long rather than look to square.

"The pitch is the pitch," O’Neill added. "We knew about it going in and we talked about making good decisions in our own half.

"I haven’t seen the goal