EVAN FERGUSON SAYS the mental lessons he has learned in the last year stood to him as he fired Ireland level against Bulgaria and helped avoid relegation from League B of the Nations League.
Ferguson had a chance shortly after half-time after Troy Parrott pounced on a clumsy touch by a Bulgarian defender, but though one-on-one with the goalkeeper, he took his shot early and outside the box, seeing it saved by the Bulgarian goalkeeper.
Eight minutes later, however, Ferguson played a slick one-two with Finn Azaz and latched onto the rebound before firing into the roof of the net.
“Maybe a little bit,” said Ferguson when asked if he was frustrated to miss the earlier chance.
“The past year I’ve learned to deal with frustration. Wipe it out of your head and move on to the next.”
Ferguson’s club career has stalled in the last 12 months, and last completed 90 minutes for his club in October last year. A January loan move to West Ham has yet to spark into life, as Ferguson has yet to start since moving from Brighton.
“There have been ups and downs so you learn to live with it and move on. That is just how football is,” continued Ferguson.
Asked whether he is comfortable with the level of expectation upon him, Ferguson said, “There is nothing really I can do about it, it is other people having that expectation of you and you have that expectation of yourself, that you want to do well every time you play football. But you can’t control what other people think or do.”
Ferguson said his goal and link-up with Azaz came from a pattern worked on the training ground.
“We’ve been doing it in training, different patterns with Mikey [Johnston] out wide and the opposite. It was just a case of driving and luckily Finn picked me back out.”
Ferguson started in a slightly unfamiliar role, playing as a number 10 behind Troy Parrott rather than leading the line alone. Assistant coach John O’Shea – who spoke to the media after the game instead of manager Heimir Hallgrimsson – explained the rationale was to replicate what Ferguson did last season at Brighton under Roberto de Zerbi.
“Knowing that Evan has been so used to that in his role at Brighton under De Zerbi. The strikers dropped down to 10s the whole time with the wide players staying high and wide. It’s a role Evan is very comfortable doing, and the success Troy had the other night, stretching the Bulgarian defenders. It wasn’t always to be as fluid as that: Evan could have stayed up as the nine himself and Troy dropped down, as they are two intelligent players.”
O’Shea admitted to his own frustration as he assessed the game.
“Positive overall,” said O’Shea. “A little bit of frustration when you play so well for large spells in the first half, really exciting, free-flowing attacking football and you get done with a set piece situation that we were aware of. They tried it out in Bulgaria with their first corner and the player slipped out in Bulgaria.
“That’s what the group has to learn as these things are so important. We spoke at half-time of the importance of not getting frustrated, that gaps would appear if we moved the ball quicker and kept our composure.”
Nonetheless a second-straight victory secures Ireland’s League B status and focus now turns to the World Cup qualifiers in September. Results tonight confirmed Portugal as Ireland’s final group opponent, along with Hungary and Armenia.
“It’s a different situation to [last summer's friendly defeat to Portugal], you’re going into a World Cup qualifier,” said O’Shea of Portugal. “We are fully aware of the quality squad they have and we will hopefully be facing them in a totally different situation, in the sense of the time of the season, you don’t want lads coming back from weddings and holidays. It will be right in the meat of the season.”
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