Soccer: McIlroy blasts players after defeat

Sammy McIlroy blasted his Northern Ireland side after they lost 4-3 in their World Cup qualifier against Bulgaria.

The Northern Irish manager accused his players of making "schoolboy errors" in their defeat.

And he felt they were at fault for all four of the Bulgarian goals.

Jim Magilton gave the ball away in the build-up to the first Bulgarian goal, which captain Krassimir Balakov scored from the penalty spot.

Mark Williams equalised with his first international goal only for the Irish defence to go to sleep to allow Martin Petrov to score their second two minutes later.

Roy Carroll was beaten from 35 yards out by a Krassimir Tchomakov free-kick for the third before Petrov was left unmarked to volley home the fourth.

The Northern Irish mounted a late fightback and scored twice in the last seven minutes through Stuart Elliott and David Healy, but that did little to improve McIlroy's mood.

The defeat ends Northern Ireland's slim hopes of qualifying for the World Cup - but McIlroy was more concerned by his side's defending.

"When you defend the way we did tonight in international football - and they were schoolboy errors - you can't expect to get anything out of the game," he said.

"Every one of their goals we should have dealt with, including the penalty and the free-kick, and it was just unacceptable.

"Our defending tonight was non-existent. We gave away a penalty after just six minutes which left us with a mountain to climb, but then we got it back to 1-1.

"At 1-1 I was screaming to them to kill the game for 10 or 15 minutes, but we conceded another goal almost straight away.

"Even at 2-1 we were in the game without playing that well and for the third goal Roy Carroll has held his hand up.

"It was his fault, but he is still a fantastic goalkeeper.

"To score three goals away from home and get nothing out of the game is terrible.

"It wasn't that they carved us open and it was just down to basic mistakes from us. We just didn't defend properly.

"As I said, we don't score a lot of goals and to score three away from home and still leave empty-handed really rubs it in.

"But we are a young team and I hope that they will learn from this."

Bulgarian coach Stojtcho Mladenov feels his side will also learn from this match, which was watched by their president.

"We are a young team and an ambitious team," he said. "We have a lot of skilful and technically good players.

"But we almost threw it away at the end and I hope my players will learn from that.

"We are pleased to win, especially because our president was here to watch."