Michael O’Neill says the referee should be ‘stronger’ in Northern Ireland’s loss to Slovakia

But the loss in Kosice hurt their hopes of reaching North America, where they will enter these qualifiers as Group 4 seeds.

Slovakia initially thought they had taken the lead in the 56th minute when Lukas Haraslin’s free-kick went past Billy Peacock-Farrell, but it was ruled that Milan Skriniar had obstructed the Northern Ireland goalkeeper’s vision.

Just eight minutes later, another goal was disallowed by VAR after David Strelic was penalized for handling the ball.

O’Neill felt that decisions to reject previous efforts played a role in allowing a late winner.

“It was a clear push on Daniel Ballard in the corner, with his hands in his back,” O’Neill said.

“The other goals that were disallowed should have been disallowed. The first goal was offside, the lines clearly show that, and the second was a handball.

“You have to look at each incident in its own right. You can’t take it cumulatively and judge the last incident differently from how you judged the other two incidents.”

After the goal, Ballard was sent off for a second yellow card and midfielder George Savile was booked and ruled out of Monday night’s clash with Luxembourg due to suspension.

Regarding Ballard’s second yellow card, O’Neill said: “It was the Slovakian drilling that caused it, as much as anything else.”

“the [second] The coach continued: “The yellow card for Daniel is a joke.”

“If you look at him again, he’s poor.”

He added: “He is a great referee. He officiated the Champions League final, and he should have disallowed the goal.”

The win, which kept alive Slovakia’s hopes of automatically qualifying for next summer’s tournament, sparked huge celebrations from the host nation with O’Neill describing their reaction as “disappointing”.

“Everything was on the line for Slovakia. You could tell by the way their technical area behaved towards the end of the game. Which was disappointing.

“It’s disappointing that their coach didn’t shake my hand.

“In the end, we congratulate Slovakia because they have to go to Germany and win the group,” he added.