Evan Ferguson revealed he has learned to ignore the outside noise after helping to secure the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League B status with his first goal since November.
The 22-year-old striker, who is on loan at West Ham from Brighton, scored the equaliser as Ireland came from behind to beat Bulgaria 2-1 in the second leg of their play-off on Sunday night to seal a 4-2 aggregate victory.
Ferguson, whose last goal for club or country came against Finland four months ago, has been one of the nation’s brightest hopes since emerging as a teenager, but has found the going tough in recent months.
Asked how he has dealt with the weight of expectation, he said: “There’s nothing really I can do about it, is there? To be honest, it’s other people having that expectation of you.
“Obviously you have that expectation of yourself that you want to do well every time you play football, but you can’t really control what other people think of you.”
Asked further if he had become adept at blocking out the noise, he added: “Yes, I think so. I’ve had more probably bad than good in the recent times, so I’ve got used to it. I don’t really care what’s being said.”
Ferguson had played only a handful of minutes as a substitute for the Hammers since his winter loan move when he met up with the international squad and had only a cameo role in Plovdiv on Thursday evening.
But he was named in the starting line-up at the Aviva Stadium and produced a finish of real quality 27 minutes from time.
Assistant head coach John O’Shea, standing in for Heimir Hallgrimsson at the post-match press conference, said: “The most important thing is that we have a healthy Evan Ferguson, a fitter Evan Ferguson each camp that goes by, and hopefully that will be the case.
“West Ham know him, the manager knows him very well, so hopefully they’re getting a much fitter and happier Evan Ferguson in that sense going back with minutes in the tank and a goal as well.”
Ferguson’s strike cancelled out Valentin Antov’s first-half opener and set the stage for substitute Adam Idah to win it on the night.
It was the third time in six games that Ireland had prevailed after conceding the opening goal – something they had not previously done in a competitive match since they beat Kazakhstan in Dublin in October 2013.
On a night when Portugal ensured their place as top seeds in Ireland’s World Cup qualifying group, O’Shea said: “Listen, you need that resilience if you’re going to qualify for major tournaments.
“We have to be winning these games in the sense of ultimately a Group B team against a Group C team, but when you go about it the way we did, we had that character to just dust ourselves down, reset, get our chances and go and win the game.”
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