Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill said the red card shown to Tom Atcheson during his side's 1-0 win over Guinea in an international friendly "killed the game". Atcheson scored the only goal in his first start for Northern Ireland, finishing Isaac Price's cross after nine minutes. The Blackburn Rovers defender received a straight red card in the second half after bringing down Abdoul Karim Traore as the last man. However, Northern Ireland managed to hold on for the win and build good momentum ahead of Monday's World Cup qualifier against France.
"The aim was to give players minutes, and we managed to get pretty much everyone on the pitch, which was good," O'Neill told BBC Sport NI. "The red card killed the game for the last 20 to 25 minutes, but they showed great character to win. I didn't see the red card incident, but the player's touch was quite far away, next to the goal. I didn't see how much foul there was, but it seemed a bit severe at the time." O'Neill used the friendly against the team ranked 80th in the world as an opportunity to give minutes to younger players in the green and white shirt. Both Liverpool's Kieran Morrison and Arsenal's Ceadach O'Neill made their senior debuts during what was a largely lackluster game. Goalkeeper Luke Southwood also came on in the second half to make just his second appearance, in a match that marked the first meeting between the nations.
"It was Tom [Atcheson]'s first start and I thought he played really well, Ciaron Brown was excellent in the line of three defenders and so was Ruairi McConville. I thought young Ceadach O'Neill did really well when he came on and showed great strength to keep possession of the ball, but it was really good to see the group come together. Ethan Galbraith hadn't played since March and Ali McCann hadn't played since March either, and they gave us a great performance. From the whole squad, they worked hard to keep the goal. zeros and win the game."
Northern Ireland will now travel to Lille to face France in their final warm-up game before the World Cup. O'Neill added that there will be "no expectations" placed on his team on Monday (20:10 BST) against the team currently second in the FIFA rankings. "They are certainly one of the main favorites for the World Cup," he added. "It will be a great challenge and a different approach from us; we will be as strong as possible from the start. It's a big game; there are no expectations on us, but we have to give a good account of ourselves."