Mistakes cost Northern Ireland dear as they dominated for large parts of their UEFA Nations League clash with Bosnia & Herzegovina but went down to 2-1 defeat at Windsor Park.
The home side had chance after chance but had two big lapses at the back to allow Haris Duljevic and Elvis Saric to give the visitors the points, despite a late Will Grigg strike.
Duljevic gave Bosnia a 37th-minute lead when he ghosted in behind the Northern Irish back four to slot home Edin Dezko’s cross from close range with the home defence on their heels and unaware of the danger behind them.
If the first goal was bad, the second we even worse as Leeds goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell was beaten by Saric after a mix-up with centre back Craig Cathcart.
The 21-year-old keeper was sold well short by Cathcart’s weak header and Saric was able to nip in a prod the ball around the keeper before slotting into the empty net for 2-0.
Substitute Grigg gave the home side some hope when he fired home from close range after a corner in stoppage time, but it proved to be too little too late as Northern Ireland failed to make their chances and pressure over the 90 minutes count.
O'Neill sees the positives
Northern Ireland manager O'Neill found plenty of positives from the efforts of his players, if not the result.
He told Sky Sports: "We are delighted with the performance, we dominated the game and were great in the first half.
"The manner we lost the goal was disappointing, but we should have had a penalty early in the game, which was pretty clear.
"If it had been given and we had scored, it would have given a different slant on the game."
O'Neill added: "It was fantastic that we played on until the final whistle and then could have got ourselves level (in stoppage time), so there are a lot more positives than negatives."
