Key talking points ahead of Northern Ireland’s clash with Romania

Northern Ireland return to action with a friendly against Romania in Bucharest on Friday night.

The fixture is the first of back-to-back away games, with a trip to Glasgow to face Scotland up next.

Here, the PA news agency looks at the key talking points ahead of the Romania game.

Youth movement

Bradley’s break-out

Davis’ new role

After missing more than a year with a serious knee injury, long-time Northern Ireland captain Steven Davis made the difficult decision to announce his retirement in January. But the 39-year-old is not one to stay away for long and has promptly joined O’Neill’s backroom staff for these games. His long-term role is yet to be determined and may depend on whether he makes a move into club coaching, but for now both O’Neill and his players are delighted to have their old skipper’s huge experience to draw on as they mould a new-look team.

Taking the long view

Northern Ireland will have more friendlies to come in June, there is expected to be a warm-weather training camp in Spain, before the Nations League returns in September. Northern Ireland have not had much fun in UEFA’s newest tournament to date and have dropped into League C, where they will face Belarus, Bulgaria, and Luxembourg later in the year. But the campaign that O’Neill and his players point to more than the Nations League is the World Cup qualifying that starts in early 2025. The goal is to have the squad ready to take on that task in a year’s time.

No easy caps