Northern Ireland manager O'Neill says Slovenia defeat 'a learning curve for young players'

Michael O'Neill has told Shea Charles he must learn from his dismissal after Northern Ireland suffered yet another 1-0 defeat in Euro 2024 qualifying, this time at home to Slovenia.

The 19-year-old Charles has been one of the bright spots for Northern Ireland in a hugely frustrating qualifying campaign, among the young players who have grabbed the chance to establish themselves in the side amid an injury nightmare.

But his international copybook got its first blemish as he collected two yellow cards to be sent off just before the hour mark at Windsor Park, meaning his run of starting every game so far in this campaign will end when Northern Ireland head to Finland next month.

The Southampton midfielder was booked for dissent just a few minutes into the match, protesting against the dubious decision to award Slovenia the free-kick from which Adam Cerin won the game, and then saw red when he caught Andraz Sporar late in the 58th minute.

Northern Ireland had been frustrated by several decisions from referee Istvan Kovacs on the night but O'Neill said that was something they had to be able to handle.

"This is a learning curve for young players," he said.

"(Slovenia) are a much more experienced international team than we are. You can see that in the way they managed the situation and played the referee a little bit.

"The emotion in the stadium obviously transferred to the players a little bit, everyone gets a bit frustrated with some of the decisions... If you're booked for dissent, that's poor. You put yourself under pressure so we have to learn from that.

"We've probably seen a little combination of inexperience in a number of players and also just the nature of the emotion in the game when you're chasing the game against a team that are a little bit more experienced and that can spill over a little bit.

"But I think that on the night we were pretty disappointed with the performance of the referee."

This was Northern Ireland's fifth 1-0 defeat of a campaign in which they have faced endless injury problems, with O'Neill forced to use two more fresh faces - Eoin Toal and Brad Lyons - on the night to take the number who have played in the eight qualifiers so far to 31.

O'Neill could rightly argue that this performance was a step forward from last month's 4-2 defeat to Slovenia in Ljubljana considering the way a makeshift defence was able to stifle Benjamin Sesko - who went down easily to win the decisive free-kick off Jamal Lewis - and Sporar.

But ultimately it was another defeat, a sixth out of eight with only two wins over minnows San Marino to break up the run.

"I think there is always frustration when you lose the game - and a little bit of disappointment as well," he said.

"I think the players deserved more out of it than what they got. We have had a frustrating campaign, a very challenging campaign and tonight's game was probably a reflection of that once again."

Captain Jonny Evans ended the night limping heavily after taking a late blow to his foot, having already been down in the first half to receive treatment.

"He's obviously hobbling a little bit in there," O'Neill said of the Manchester United defender.

"I think the same foot was stamped on three times so he's limping pretty badly but I think he'll be fine.

"It will be one of those where when he wakes up in the morning he'll be pretty sore but there's no real damage as far as I know."

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