Conor Bradley, 21, delivers blunt message to team-mates after taking unlikely senior role

Liverpool’s Conor Bradley feels Michael O’Neill’s young Northern Ireland side are having to learn on the job.

Bailey Peacock-Farrell dropped a clanger to hand Bulgaria victory

O’Neill has had to turn to Bradley and his other youngsters after Jonny Evans followed Steven Davis and Stuart Dallas in quitting

O’Neill’s side against Bulgaria had an average age of 24 years and 10 months, while it was just 24 years and three months for the team that beat Luxembourg on Thursday.

Bradley, 21, is their only Premier League player and the Reds star says they have no time to feel sorry for themselves, even though they still have the L-plates up.

Bradley

“We’re a really young team,”

“We have so many Under-21 players and it’s obviously a learning curve for us.

“We just have to learn from it, pick ourselves up and go again. Bulgaria were a strong team, to be fair. They were very physical and we knew it was going to be difficult.”

“I think every away game in international football is difficult.

“We’re disappointed we didn’t get a point, if not three, but we’ll learn from it and go again. Hopefully, we can get Bulgaria back when we play them in Belfast in October. Hopefully we can get some revenge.”

Bradley says the Irish must learn their painful lessons ahead of their next game against Belarus on October 12, which will be played in Hungary.

Bradley said

“I think making sure we don’t give teams a start on us,”

“Giving away goals, for example. Going away to any international team is going to be difficult so we’ll try and keep a clean sheet for as long as we can and stay in the game for as long as we can.

“We know the first half wasn’t good enough. We didn’t keep the ball well enough and we kept giving away free-kicks. We brought pressure on ourselves and there’s a lot for us to learn from it.

“We know it’s going to be difficult playing Belarus away, but I have full confidence already.

“We have a good bit of momentum so we just have to keep that going. We aren’t out of the group yet and the win the other night against Luxembourg was good for us, so we’re not done yet.”