NI ‘showed great character’ in Guinea win – O’NeillImage source, Press EyeImage caption, The average age of the starting XI was the youngest of Michael O’Neill’s tenureByJana McCabeBBC Sport NI journalistPublished24 minutes agoNorthern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill mentioned Tom Atcheson’s red card during his side’s 1-0 win over Guinea in an international friendly “killed the game”.Atcheson scored the only goal on his first Northern Ireland start when he fired home Isaac Price’s cross on nine minutes.The Blackburn Rovers defender was then shown a straight red card in the second half when he brought down Abdoul Karim Traore as the last man, but NI were able to hang on to win and help build momentum ahead of Monday’s match against World Cup bound France.
“The objective was to get minutes into players, and we managed to get basically everyone on the pitch which was nice,” O’Neill told BBC Sport NI.
“The sending off killed the game and for the last 20 to 25 minutes, but they showed great character to go and win the game.
“I haven’t seen it [the red card incident] back but the player’s touch was a good bit away, wide of the goal. I haven’t seen how much contact there was, but it did look a bit harsh at the time.”
