Northern Ireland captaincy decision not in Michael O'Neill's immediate thoughts

Michael O'Neill insists there is no rush to make a decision on who will take the captain's armband for Northern Ireland on a permanent basis.

Trai Hume and Conor Bradley have captained the side in the last two windows following Jonny Evans' decision to retire from international football back in August.

O'Neill is yet to announce who will captain the team for the Nations League games against Belarus and Luxembourg next week, but he said moving forward that he would look to "do things differently".

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"I don't think we have to make a decision on it quickly," said the Northern Ireland boss. "We had a situation prior to this where the captaincy was almost a natural evolution from Aaron Hughes to Steven Davis to Jonny Evans.

"It wasn't a difficult situation for any manager to have to deal with. This is different and I think we can maybe do things differently. The important thing is we have good leaders and personalities in our group and whoever wears the armband relishes the chance to do it.

"I don't think we'll have one player who will be the dominant captain for the next 10 or 12 years, what I would like to see is a number of dominant players in that group. It's not something I've given a huge amount of thought to at present."

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