NI frustrated ‘because we know how good we can be’ – Bradley

Conor Bradley believes a youthful Northern Ireland side have the potential to be “a really good team”.

The defender, at the age of 21, captained Northern Ireland for the first time in Saturday’s frustrating Nations League goalless draw with Belarus.

After dominating the game, which was played behind closed doors in Hungary due to Uefa restrictions, Northern Ireland failed to find the crucial opener despite creating a number of chances.

The players looked dejected at full-time and Bradley believes that is because “we know how good we are and how good we can be”.

He told BBC Sport NI: “We’re obviously still young and still learning, but there’s definitely potential there.

“If we all just get it clicking together then we can be a really good team. We’re really looking forward to the future but we just need to keep trying to get the wins.”

Liverpool full-back Bradley was delighted with the first-half performance but was left “really disappointed” that Northern Ireland could not claim the three points.

“I thought the performance was really good,” he said.

“It’s one of the best performances we’ve had for a while but the ball wouldn’t go in the back of the net.

“If we got one goal then we could have got three or four. It was just one of those nights.

“At least we didn’t lose the game, I thought we did really well to keep the clean sheet.”

‘I was really proud to be captain’

While it was a second clean sheet in three Nations League matches, Northern Ireland have now failed to score since their opening win at home to Luxembourg.

Their last six goals in all competitions have all been scored by defenders, with Bradley netting three of those, and Jamie Reid was the last forward to net in March’s draw with Romania.

Bradley admits that finding the net is “probably the hardest thing to do in football” but is confident Northern Ireland can turn their fortunes in front of goal around.

“We struggled with it [on Saturday] but I’m sure there are other nights when we could have scored two or three,” he said.

“We just have to keep working hard, stick together in there and I’m sure we will do that.”

Bradley said he was “extremely proud” to captain Northern Ireland for the first time, and would love the chance to do it against Bulgaria at Windsor Park on Tuesday.

However, he accepts that manager Michael O’Neill, who has said he would rotate the captaincy throughout the Nations League, has the final say.

“It was pretty surreal walking out with the boys behind me and having the armband was pretty special,” Bradley added.

“I’m just really proud. I think it will be a bit nicer if fans are there, but we’ll leave that down to Michael to see who he thinks should be the captain on Tuesday.”