Millar must make do without key strikers

The Northern Ireland Under-21 manager Roy Millar could be without his two principal strikers when his side resume their European Under-21 Championship qualifying campaign.

Rochdale's Lee McEvilly is suspended for the match against Spain in June after picking up a yellow card in the 6-2 home defeat to Greece on Tuesday. Warren Feeney of Bournemouth, meanwhile, could also be absent as he was due to undergo surgery on a locked knee yesterday.

Feeney was forced to come off after only six minutes of the match at Belfast's Oval and Millar said: "We have been in touch with Bournemouth to let them know Warren needs an operation. It's a real blow for the boy.

"At the moment we are not sure how long the recovery time will be. But we might have to manage without him and Lee against Spain and that would really hit us hard."

McEvilly's club-mate Pat McCourt will also miss the qualifier against Spain through suspension after being sent off during the defeat to Greece. He received a straight red card after a wild lunge at Evangelos Tsiolis.

Millar said: "Even though the game was over, I was very disappointed with Pat's attitude."

The Irish, who go into the game against Spain having picked up only one point from four matches, were undone against Greece by some dreadful defending.

"It was so disappointing after all the work we had put in," Millar said. "You can't afford to give the ball away so cheaply at this level."

"We let three goals in in each half and you can't expect to win international matches doing that. We were playing reasonable football in the first half – but every time we got back in the game we made another defensive mistake.

"Any positives we could have taken out of the Armenian game have gone out of the window."