'It was like a bad date' - Michael O'Neill on one of Northern Ireland's biggest lows

Michael O’Neill claims his worst night as boss will have “zero impact” on what could be one of his best.

Northern Ireland need just a point in Luxembourg on Monday to top and says suffering one of their most-humiliating losses to the tiny nation in 2013 is irrelevant. The Irish lost 3-2 in what was only Luxembourg’s fourth-ever and O’Neill dismissed it as being like a “bad date”.

He insists he has a different team now and does not need to address what happened in his team talk. “Look, we’ll go back there and play the game and that game will have zero impact on it, zero impact,” said the Irish boss. “It’s like a bad date, have you ever had a bad date? You’d never go back to that. It doesn’t mean anything. It means nothing, it’s not the same group of players.

“That was a tired performance from a team that had nothing to play for, having played extremely well 72 hours previously against Portugal and a game that we should never have lost.

READ MORE:

READ MORE:

“You can have results like that, but we’re playing with a different group of players now. We won’t be revisiting it. It’s a big prize, isn’t it winning promotion? So that’s very important.”

The defeat was a watershed moment for Northern Ireland as they topped their qualifying group to reach Euro 2016.

“I think for the lads there, if you ask and s and those people that played in that game, it was a turning point because we won our group in the next campaign,” he said.

O’Neill respects the job Luxembourg coach Luc Holtz has done and claims the Irish will have to perform to get the result they need.

“We play a good team. I think Luxembourg have been unlucky in the group. They’ve just had narrow defeats. I know their coach well, he’s been in place for nearly 12 years, and I think they have really developed as a team under him.”

and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our