Northern Ireland Team Preview – Overview
Northern Ireland will be making their debuts at the European Championships this year having had a wonderful qualification campaign to make it here. Not only has their qualifying been good but their football as a whole has because they arrive in France with the longest unbeaten stretch of any sides in the tournament – 12 matches.
Success comes largely based on a well drilled and organised defence and while they don’t tend to score many goals the ones they do score are important and if they can get off to a good start in the tournament they might continue this run of surprising everyone. That said they’ve landed a horrible group to be in.
Statistics
Best Performance – First Appearance in 2016
Previous Appearances – 0
Qualified – Group F Winner
Qualifying Record
P-10 W-6 D-3 L-1 GF-16 GA-8 PTS-21
Fixtures
Poland vs Northern Ireland – Sunday 12th June, kickoff 17:00 at Allianz Riviera, Nice
Ukraine vs Northern Ireland – Thursday 16th June, kickoff 17:00 at Parc OL, Lyon
Northern Ireland vs Germany – Tuesday 21st June, kickoff 17:00 at Parc des Princes, Paris
Squad
Manager: Michael O’Neill
Goalkeepers: Roy Carroll (Notts County), Michael McGovern (Hamilton), Alan McManus (St Johnstone)
Defenders: Craig Cathcart (Watford), Jonny Evans (West Brom), Gareth McAuley (West Brom), Luke McCullough (Doncaster), Conor McLaughlin (Fleetwood), Aaron Hughes (Melbourne City), Lee Hodson (MK Dons), Chris Baird (Derby County), Paddy McNair (Manchester United.
Midfielders: Steven Davis (Southampton), Oliver Norwood (Reading), Corry Evans (Blackburn), Jamie Ward (Nottingham Forest), Stuart Dallas (Leeds), Niall McGinn (Aberdeen), Shane Ferguson (Millwall)
Forwards: Will Grigg (Wigan), Kyle Lafferty (Birmingham), Conor Washington (QPR), Josh Magennis (Kilmarnock)
Betting
It is hard to see Northern Ireland getting what they would need to come out of the group but they are hard to beat so it wouldn’t be a major surprise if they took a point or two somewhere along the way. That is potentially about as good as it is going to get for them though sadly I think. There isn’t a fixture you can predict with certainty to form a bet on their points or things around.
Kyle Lafferty leads the market to be their top goalscorer and he is clearly the focal part of their attack but with noises doing the rounds about an injury it might be worth taking him on especially as a couple of goals could be plenty here.
We’re going to hear all about Will Grigg over the next couple of weeks, at least on the terraces and probably off them too but I’m not sure that will be because of the goals he scores. On fire he might be but this is a major tournament. Conor Washington is still getting to grips with this level.
Steven Davis makes late runs into the box and Northern Ireland do like a counter attack in the wider areas through the likes of Dallas and Ferguson and so the Southampton midfielder arriving late like Paul Scholes used to do so often could prove fruitful here. He is 10/1 which looks a fair price to me with every chance that if he grabs one goal we’ll get a payout of some kind.
Tips
Back S.Davis Top Northern Ireland Tournament Goalscorer for a 1/10 stake at 11.00 with Bwin
Back him here:
