Northern Ireland 2 – 1 Sweden

Northern Ireland sit top of EURO 2008 Qualifying Group F this morning (well, afternoon) after their 3rd competitive win in a row, against a Sweden side who had until last night boasted a 100% record.
Northern Ireland were without the suspended Gillespie and injured Baird (and Clingan of course), with McCann coming in for Gillespie (with Damo moving over to the right) and Feeney preferred up front to Lafferty.

The opening half hour was good, without any clear cut chances. Feeney went missing for a good 5 minutes near the start to get a head wound seen to, but when he finally deemed it time to rejoin us he was fully justifying his selection. He did some good running, however during his best run he made the schoolboy error of concentrating too much on holding off the defender’s challenge and forgot to bring the ball with him.
On 31 minutes disaster struck when Sweden scored with what was their first clear chance of the game when their striker held off Aaron Hughes to swivel and fire past Maik Taylor. That fairly put a dampner on things but about 10 minutes (well, officially only 4) Healy scored yet another stunning goal out of nothing as he hit the ball on the half-volley from the edge of the box, over the keeper, and under the just raised/lowered (no-one will tell me which) crossbar in front of the kop. (We were playing the wrong way last night and still won!)

The teams went in at half time all square, and then the best entertainment of the match took place with visiting delegate Dennis Wise. After Healy’s screamer, the whole ground had been singing “Are you watching Dennis Wise?” and at half-time he was interviewed in front of the kop. He got a bit more of that, then “Denis, give us a wave” – and when he obliged – “Who are ya?!” Absolutely legendary.
Sweden came out for the second half totally on the attack, with us doing well to get the thing cleared, and having hardly any attacks, when Davis won the ball and gave it to Damo inside our own half, and Damo did his Gillespie impression and powered down the byline to get a cross in for Healy to hit the ball across into the net in front of the now-defunct Railyway Stand. 2-1!!!! Absolutely class!! And after holding on to one-goal leads for gradually extending times against England and Spain, doing so against Sweden should prove to be no problem…

There were a few nervy moments. Grant McCann cleared an Ibrahimovic header off the line, before a dangerous run and ball across the box saw Stephen Craigan calmly decide to ping it off his own post rather than risk a corner. Then one of their boys was played through, but Maik pulled off a tremedous save and the ball landed about half an inch past his right post.

Healy had had a shot saved in the half, and then did his one imperfect thing all night, when Laffs, on for the tiring Feeney, was free in the middle but Sir DH just couldn’t pick him out to make it 3-1.

NI top of Group F and Healy sitting top of the goalscoring charts by a clear 2 goals. Still a long way from qualifying, and with a few tricky aways before we’re finished, but top of the group at the halfway stage is just class. And we’ve a long time to savour it!
NORTHERN IRELAND: Taylor, Duff, Hughes, Craigan, Evans, Johnson, McCann, Davis, Brunt (Sproule, 90), Healy (Webb, 88), Feeney (Lafferty, 71)
UEFA Highlights
Healy has scored as many goals himself as the entire England team have managed!

Are you watching Dennis Wise?

Liechenstein 1 – 4 Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland won their must-win match in Vaduz tonight, but made harder work of it than the 4-1 scoreline suggests. The team was as expected, but the first half performance was well below par. Keith Gillespie picked up a rather harsh booking for a high challenge which means he’ll be suspended for the Sweden match on Wednesday. This didn’t seem such a big loss for the first 50 minutes or so as Keith was one of the many players having a poor match, putting in bad balls etc. Indeed, the best chance of the half fell to the home side, as they saw a header from 3 yards go over the bar on the (too early for Lawrie!) stroke of half-time.

Seven minutes after the interval the breakthrough finally came, after a Liechenstein defensive blunder provided Lafferty with a chance which was blocked by the keeper, but it fell to Sir David on the edge of the box for an easy goal. Our performance didn’t get any better however, and soon after Maik Taylor punched a corner straight to one of their players, who fired wide when he should have scored. However, within minutes Gillespie played a ball forward for Healy to get his second of the night with a cool finish. Laffs, on a yellow, had been taken off after the first goal for Feeney, and Brunt departed on 67 minutes for McCann. Brunt had a particularly disappointing first half I felt, certainly not yet carrying his club form over to international level. As co-commentator John O’Neill noted after the second goal, we had still been ‘playing awful’, but finally things started getting better, with Keith starting to cause them real problems and showing what a big loss he’ll actually be on Wednesday. Davis played a ball through to Healy, the flag stayed down, and he was left in acres of space to run through and nutmeg the keeper to become the first ever Norn Iron player to score two hat-tricks.

That was literally his last touch of the game, and Steve Jones came on for him. In the 90th minute, we were denied our fourth clean sheet in a row as some unpronouncable Liechensteiner fired a screamer past Maik from 20 yards. However, we weren’t finished, and we restored our 3-goal advantage when Gillespie put in a great cross for Grant McCann to head in his first Northern Ireland goal.

So a poor performance for the first 55 minutes or so, but as Lawrie says matches last 90 minutes. If we play like that on Wednesday we’ll be in trouble, but I’m sure we’ll raise our game. David Healy – superb! Club form doesn’t matter – he always produces the goals for us. 3 more to his total – as John O’Neill said, ‘no-one’s ever gonna beat that’!!! And 8 in the last 6 games. It was good to see McCann get one, meaning that finally someone else has scored in this campaign! And, temporarily at least, 2nd in the group. Which all sets us up nicely for Wednesday…
NORTHERN IRELAND: Taylor, Duff, Craigan, Hughes, Evans, Gillespie, Johnson, Davis, Brunt (McCann, 67), Healy (Jones, 82), Lafferty (Feeney, 52)
Not Used: Carroll, Elliott, Sproule, Quinn

Feeney joins Cardiff

Warren Feeney has joined Cardiff City on loan for the rest of the season, and has also agreed terms for a 3-year permanent contract from the start of next season. It certainly seems a good career-move for Feeney, leaving 23rd placed Luton to join 7th placed Cardiff (both clubs are in the Championship).

Cardiff want Feeney for Premiership push

“I’ve made some bids, and I believe Feeney would like to talk to us, but Luton have rejected us at the moment,” said Cardiff chairman Peter Ridsdale.
“There are a number of other players we are chasing, but clubs aren’t making it easy and we have to do the right deal. If the prices are right we will bring in new faces before Thursday’s deadline to give us the best chance of getting out of this division this season.”

Damo goal

On Saturday – nearly forgot to put this on:

(Goal number 1, obviously)
“We needed that resilience and took a bit of a gung-ho approach and
thankfully Damien popped up with a wonder strike. I’ve had him with me for five years and I will never spend another £50,000
like I did on him. The goal he scored was possibly the best he has scored in his career.”
(ht Pete)

Squad for Liechenstein & Sweden

Taylor (Birmingham), Carroll (West Ham), Mannus (Linfield); Craigan (Motherwell), Hughes (Aston Villa), Duff (Burnley), Evans (Man Utd, on loan to Sunderland), Webb (Ross County); McCann (Barnsley), Davis (Aston Villa), Gillespie (Sheff Utd), Johnson (Birmingham), Brunt (Sheff Wed), Jones (Burnley), Elliott (Hull); Lafferty (Burnley), Sproule (Hibernian), Feeney (Luton), Healy (Leeds), Quinn (Northampton).
Missing two first teamers, Baird and Clingan, due to a groin injury and a broken ankle respectively. Capaldi is also missing with a groin problem.

Baird screamer

Chris Baird scored his 3rd goal of the season tonight, an absolute screamer. I’ll get the video on as soon as it’s on YouTube. It was in a 2-2 draw with Cardiff.
In Sheff Wed’s 2-0 win over Colchester, Chris Brunt hit in a corner so good that a Colchester defender couldn’t resist heading it into his own net.
Stuart Elliott also got another 90 minutes under his belt as Hull moved clear of the relegation zone with a 2-1 win over Luton. Feeney came on at half time – his side are now 2nd bottom of the Championship.

Brunt tipped for Premiership by manager

Chris Brunt scored his 10th goal of the season this afternoon in Sheffield Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with QPR. Afterwards, his manager Brian Laws said:

“Chris Brunt will attract attention. If you look at his goals this season, they would not look out of place in the Premiership. I believe he will get to the Premiership. He is young, talented and he is a shining light at Sheffield Wednesday. But he is not going anywhere. He is under contract, and we need players like him at the club.”
Andy Kirk came on as a sub and scored in Northampton’s 3-1 win over Bournemouth.
Also, I see that Stuart Elliott played the whole match for Hull as they recorded an important 2-0 win over Preston to give them a boost in their battle against relegation from the Championship.

Burnley duo agree new contracts

From the Official Burnley site:
Burnley’s Kyle Lafferty and Michael Duff have handed the club a terrific boost by agreeing new contracts at Turf Moor. The Northern Ireland internationals have both signed new three-and-a-half year deals, running until the summer of 2010. Defender Michael Duff’s contract was due to expire at the end of this season, whilst teenage striker Lafferty was originally tied down until the end of the 2008/09 campaign.
However, the pair have both made impressive progress during their time at Turf Moor and boss Steve Cotterill admitted his joy at securing their futures on a longer-term basis.
“I am delighted to have signed both players on longer contracts.” said Cotterill. “First of all, to have someone as young as Kyle come through the youth ranks and be in the first team squad as a striker is excellent. We are delighted with his progress and look forward, as time goes on, to him playing a bigger part in the future of the club.”
On Duff, Cotterill added: “I think Michael has, to date, probably been our most consistent player. I also think that quite probably over the last month a little rest might have helped him. He has played an enormous amount of football this season with the internationals and we are delighted to have secured his services for another three and a half years.”

Brunt scores from 40 yards

In Sheffield Wednesday’s 3-2 win over Leeds on Saturday.

It’s the second goal in the clip.
Clive Tinsley, commentating called it, ‘world class…any player you can name would have been proud of that’.