Jonny Evans will play no part in Northern Ireland’s friendly against Andorra on Tuesday night with Daniel Ballard set to take the captain’s armband in Murcia.
Evans, who has dealt with a number of injury niggles throughout the season at Manchester United, played the full 90 minutes of Saturday’s 5-1 loss to Spain in Palma and Michael O’Neill has opted to allow the 36-year-old to rest. Evans did not travel with the rest of the team on Sunday.
Ballard, who scored Northern Ireland’s goal against Spain when they took a shock early 1-0 lead, will now get the honour of captaining his country for the first time at the Estadio Nueva Condomina in Murcia.
Saturday may have been a humbling night but O’Neill said he wanted his side to play with confidence in an encounter where it should be their turn to dominate.
“This game is different because we know there is an expectation there obviously,” he said. “We have to go in and play with confidence. We have to play quickly. We don’t want the game to be slow and pedestrian.
“We can make it a frustrating night for ourselves but it’s important that we don’t do that.”
There was no surprise that Conor Bradley was Northern Ireland’s most lively attacking threat against Spain, and the Liverpool youngster said he was looking forward to a night when he should not need to spend so much time on the back foot.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Bradley said. “It should be a good game. Obviously it was disappointing against Spain, they were very clinical. We’ve watched the game back and I don’t think we did as bad as what the result showed.
“We’re looking forward to the game now and hopefully we can put on a good performance.
“I much prefer going forwards than having to go backwards so I’m really looking forward to it and hopefully I can chip in with some goals and assists and help the team.
“It won’t be the same game. We should have a little bit more of the ball and show a different side. We need to be better going forward and create chances against a deep low block.”
O’Neill indicated he intends to make several changes, and that could mean a debut for defender Aaron Donnelly, who celebrated his 21st birthday on Saturday.
The only other uncapped player in O’Neill’s squad is 18-year-old goalkeeper Pierce Charles, the younger brother of midfielder Shea, who could be pushed up the order if Conor Hazard is unable to recover from an infection in his leg in time for the match.
Bradley added: “We’ve got quite a young team and so it’s about trying to get as many of them games and game time.
“I know whenever I made my debut it was a special moment so hopefully whoever hasn’t yet will get their chance and take their chance.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here