Oxtoby pleased NI have 'turned a corner' after win

Northern Ireland boss Tanya Oxtoby expressed her delight that her side delivered a "90-minute performance" in their 2-0 victory against Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Joely Andrews opened the scoring at Windsor Park with substitute Lauren Wade adding a second.

The win secured second place in the group and Oxtoby was content with the display in their second consecutive win.

"I'm really pleased - I thought it was a 90-minute performance and that is what we asked for," she told BBC Sport NI.

"We adjusted our shape a couple of times to try and exploit different spaces and we did it seamlessly, which shows the progression of the group."

Northern Ireland had a decent first half in Belfast without creating any clear-cut chances.

They raced out of the blocks in the second half however, with Andrews finishing off a well-crafted move two minutes after the restart.

Wade then scored a fine individual goal as Northern Ireland controlled the second period on their way to victory.

Oxtoby admitted her message at half-time was more of the same but with the need to add a ruthless streak in the final third.

"We wanted more of the same in terms of our counter press, I thought we pinned them in well and created chances," she explained.

"We spoke at half-time about spaces we wanted to exploit and how we were going to do it, but I think for us it was about continuing that momentum and managing the game once we got in front."

She was also happy that finishing drills in training have contributed to Northern Ireland developing a clinical edge in front of goal in the two games this window.

"We worked on that [the move for the first goal] and we are driving the standards to hold them accountable in training, so we are starting to see the fruits of that now.

"When we get in those areas, we are really starting to take those opportunities and I am really pleased for the girls."

Oxtoby was keen to highlight the contributions of the whole squad across the two games and believes they are progressing well 10 months into her tenure.

"This is a whole squad that has been building towards these performances," she said.

"It is a credit to the whole group for the position we are in, but I felt like in the last window we turned a corner and we have proved that again across these two games. We are really starting to gel as a group and play the football we want to play."

Attention now turns to the play-offs for Northern Ireland, who will find out their opponent in Friday's draw, with Oxtoby keen to begin preparing for the October tie as soon as possible.

"We've achieved what we had set out to achieve in this group, we will start preparing now for the play-offs to make sure we're organised.

"From our perspective we're ready, it doesn't matter who we play and we're looking to continue to build on our journey."