Uefa Nations League B, Group 3: Austria v Northern Ireland (Ernst Happel Stadium, Vienna, 7.45pm Irish time tonight)
AFTER all the hoo-ha about a player who isn’t here – his one-time Rangers colleague Kyle Lafferty – Northern Ireland captain Steven Davis was happy to talk about ‘the other Kyle’, Vassell.
The Rotherham United striker is the latest new face in a new-look NI squad hoping to change the new thing they suffered in their Nations League opener – playing well but losing.
That positive performance ended up in a 2-1 defeat by the other team in this second tier section, Bosnia-Herzegovina, but Davis still took encouragement from the display:
“Although the initial result didn’t go our way against Bosnia, you could see by the way we performed… [that] everybody enjoyed it in terms of how we tried to play and progress as a team.
“It’s important we continue to move forward. We took a lot of positives from that. There are still a lot of things we can do better as well, but we took that into the second game against Israel and tried to continue to do the right things.”
As for Vassell, the skipper said: “He’s fitted in with the group really well. It’s an easy group to come into and he’s mixed in with all the boys excellently.
“From what I’ve seen in training, it looks as if he’s definitely got something there to offer.
“He’s delighted to be called up for the first time and trying to make the most of the opportunity. I’m sure the way he’s performed in training this week, he’s given Michael some food for thought moving forward and he’ll be looking to cement his place in the squad.”
Davis accepted that the players know they cannot afford to lose again, with a trip to Sarajevo looming for a Monday night match:
“There’s always a certain pressure that comes with playing competitive games. Bosnia have put themselves in a very strong position.
“We realise we’re on the back foot a bit, it’s the same for both teams going into this game. But as always our approach won’t change, we’ll try to pick up maximum points.
“Listen, it’s going to be very difficult: they haven’t conceded a lot at home, they’ve won a lot of games at home, so we’re not under-estimating the task ahead. But we’ve taken a lot of belief from the performances in September. Hopefully we can carry that into this game – and the result will follow this time.
“It’s a work in progress. We’ve got great attributes physically now from players in the right areas to be able to play like that.
“It will be interesting to see how we do that coming away from home. These are two good tests for us now”.
