Michael O'Neill: Northern Ireland defeat in Germany 'far from a disaster'

Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill says his side's 2-0 defeat by Germany is "far from a disaster" in terms of their hopes of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.

First-half goals by Julian Draxler and Sami Khedira sealed Germany's victory in the Group C qualifier in Hanover.

"If we had taken anything here it would have been a huge bonus," O'Neill said.

"Whatever else happens I don't see any of the other teams in the group coming here and winning."

• Northern Ireland defeated in Germany

Draxler and Khedira struck in the space of four first-half minutes to maintain Germany's position at the top of the group with three wins from three matches.

"I couldn't have asked any more of the players," O'Neill said. "I thought we contained Germany better than we did in Paris [at Euro 2016].

"I was disappointed to go behind the way we did and to lose the second goal at that point in the game. You're trying to contain Germany and it's difficult then.

"In the last 20 minutes of the first half we had opportunities on the counter-attack and we could possibly have done a little bit better with those. We ran out of legs a little bit to threaten them."

Northern Ireland now lie third in the group, three points behind unbeaten Azerbaijan, who are their next opponents in Belfast on 11 November.

"We look forward to Azerbaijan and if we win that we have the incentive of going second," said the NI boss.