Northern Ireland v Lithuania (12/11/2021)

Ferguson has scored just two international goals for his country. His first came in a thrilling 3-3 friendly draw at Windsor Park against Finland on 15 August 2012 in what was only his fourth international appearance. He also became only the fourth player to score on the full international stage for Northern Ireland while playing for Newcastle United. However, he had to wait nine years for his second goal , which of course came back in September in Tallinn against Estonia (1-0 win for Northern Ireland) when he marked his 50th appearance with a stunning strike.

Ian Baraclough is the third Northern Ireland manager that Shane has played under. Nigel Worthington gave him his debut , which was his only appearance during the former Sheffield Wednesday defender’s spell in charge. Not surprisingly the vast majority of his caps came under Michael O’Neill (41) , while to date he has played in 10 of Ian Baraclough’s 18 games in charge.

In his 12 years as a professional in England and Scotland, Ferguson has played for a total of five clubs. He made 32 appearances without scoring for Newcastle United. He scored once in 34 matches in two separate loan spells with Birmingham City. An unproductive stint at Rangers saw him play just four games before moving to south London with Millwall where he found the net 12 times in 217 appearances. At the time of writing he had played 12 matches for his current side Rotherham United. He joined the EFL League One side in the summer.

During his 12-year stint as a full international Shane Ferguson has been booked on just three occasions. His first yellow card came in October 2015 in a 2-0 Euro 2016 qualifying win in Estonia. The other two cautions came in back-to- back World Cup qualifying matches in the autumn of 2016 - against Germany, when Northern Ireland lost 2-0 in Hanover, and versus Azerbaijan, when Michael O’Neill’s side won 4-0 at the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park.

In total Shane has played 2,827 minutes in his 52 games for Northern Ireland. The majority of those minutes have been in friendly matches - 1051 - while 1029 have come in World Cup qualifiers, 476 in Euro qualifiers and 271 in the UEFA Nations League.

IRISHFA.COM

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