During the international break, numerous Birmingham City players from Chris Davies’ squad are representing their respective countries.
Michael O’Neill believes Bailey Peacock-Farrell made the ‘wrong decision’ in Northern Ireland’s 1-0 loss to Bulgaria.
O’Neill’s team arrived in Plosive in good form, having won four of their last six games and lost only once – in a friendly away to Spain.
Despite winning the Nations League opener against Luxembourg on Thursday night, O’Neill’s young team was unable to recover from a goal just before halftime, which came as a result of another Peacock-Farrell error.
On a tricky pitch, the Birmingham City goalkeeper underhit a pass to Dan Ballard, which was intercepted and squared for the hosts’ captain, Kiril Despodov, to tap in.
“I haven’t seen the goal back in any detail but Bailey knows himself it was the wrong decision and ultimately that was the deciding factor in the game,” stated the Northern Ireland coach.
Prior to that, Peacock-Farrell made an excellent near-post stop from a Bulgarian corner. Nonetheless, this was the third game in a row that the 27-year-old made a mistake that lost his team a goal. He was caught in possession in a 2-1 victory against Leyton Orient, and then allowed Thelo Aasgaard’s shot to slip through his fingers against Wigan Athletic on Saturday.
Ryan Allsop, a former Hull City player, is also a possibility in goal for the Blues, having appeared in three cup matches.
For his part, O’Neill was disappointed with the pitch’s quality: “It’s not what you expect in international football,” he stated.