How Northern Ireland copied Scotland and why Euro 2024 will be different as Michael O'Neill addresses Aberdeen speculation

The manager, who is based in Edinburgh, saw his young side frustrate Steve Clarke’s team to further deflate Scottish spirits but send their own fans singing into the Glasgow night.

It is Northern Ireland’s first victory at Hampden since May 1974 and perhaps helps put to bed speculation linking O'Neill with the vacant managerial position at Aberdeen. The Pittodrie club are due at Hampden for a Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic next month and while O’Neill might be present, he won’t be back in a dugout.

“That speculation is created by you guys,” he said afterwards. “I’m not even thinking about that at the minute. I might come to watch the game, but that’s about it.”

He praised his young team, with the starting XI boasting an average age of just over 23-and-a-half, for sticking to their task against Scotland and restricting the hosts to so few clear-cut scoring opportunities.

John McGinn’s tame shot after 47 minutes was Scotland’s first on target and Northern Ireland ‘keeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell only really had one save of note to make. Budding Liverpool full-back Conor Bradley’s deflected effort after 32 minutes proved the decisive goal but O’Neill, who led Northern Ireland into the last 16 at Euro 2016, relayed a message of hope to Clarke.

“Scotland will go to the finals and the games will not be like this,” he said. “They will not have that level of possession in Germany. They won’t face opposition like us who make them play in front of them. They’ll be the ones who sit a little deeper and they’ll have a threat on the counter attack.

“I would imagine that will suit them a bit better because they have got very good players, you could see that. They are having a little bit of a tricky time, but I wouldn’t be concerned about that. I think they will go to Germany and they will give a really good account of themselves.”

“We did really well to nullify the Scots,” he added. “Steve Clarke has really nailed that system he plays. We’ve watched it a lot and, in all honesty, we’ve copied it.

“It was a very good performance from us. We always knew this would be a tough challenge and we would have to be very good without the ball. It is something we have worked very hard on. We have improved a lot with that.

“We forced Scotland into errors in the middle of the pitch and could have capitalised on them a bit better. We had three or four counter attacks we could have done better with. The goal comes as a result of Conor pressing. He did great, it was a great bit of individual quality to score.”