Northern Ireland captain Steven Davis felt his side deserved to be celebrating a crucial three-point World Cup qualifying haul against Azerbaijan tonight after creating enough chances to win ''two or three games''.

Michael O'Neill's side spurned at least half a dozen glorious chances to cancel out Rauf Aliyev's stunning first-half strike for Azerbaijan before finally finding the back of the net when David Healy scored deep into stoppage time.

That avoided an embarrassing defeat but there was no time left for Northern Ireland to find a winner and the 1-1 draw was a huge setback to their World Cup qualifying campaign.

Davis said: ''We created enough chances to win two or three games but we simply couldn't find the net and when we finally did it was too late.

''I don't think I've played in a Northern Ireland performance where we've created so much, so many clear-cut chances.

''I thought the performance merited the win, but it wasn't to be.''

The result leaves Northern Ireland with three points from four games and all but out of the reckoning for a qualifying berth out of Group F.

Davis said of his side's chances: ''It's gonna make it really difficult..I thought if we won tonight it would put us in a position with three home games to come where we might have had a chance of doing something, but obviously this is a major blow. But we'll keep going.''