Joy for Carroll as Northern Ireland beat Greece

• Roy Carroll reflects on "dream night" on his return to Greece
• Michael O'Neill: "Defenders can't handle Kyle Lafferty at his best"
• Greece coach Claudio Ranieri blames his side's lack of focus
• Northern Ireland are top of Group F on nine points; Greece have one
• Next games: Greece v Faroe Islands, Romania v Northern Ireland (14 November)

Roy Carroll, Northern Ireland goalkeeper
It's a dream night. First of all it's nice to come back to Greece and get a performance like that. I love this place. I lived here for three years [while at Olympiacos FC] and I had a really good time. We got the three points and everybody is delighted with that. We've nine points from the first three games, two of which were away from home.

Greece had a higher percentage of the ball, but we defended well. We were playing away from home and we got two goals and a clean sheet, so that's fantastic. I had only one shot to save in the whole game, so that's credit to all the players, including those who came off the bench.

Everybody can dream [of qualifying]. Hopefully we can push on. We've got another away game next month, against Romania. We've got three away games in the first four matches, so it's difficult. If we get a good result out there you never know, hopefully we can qualify, but it's still too early to talk about that at the moment.

Claudio Ranieri, Greece coach
We lacked focus at the start and conceded early on which made it difficult for us. It was very difficult to break down a side so compact in defence. They are a team that know only too well how to close down space. We got hit by counterattacks and had no balance in midfield. It was concentration that we lacked tonight.

I watched Northern Ireland's matches against Romania and the Faroe Islands and told my players to beware set pieces and counterattacks – and that's how Northern Ireland scored. We conceded in Finland from a counterattack and it happened again tonight. We still have a long way to go. There are 21 points up for grabs and all is not lost.

Michael O'Neill, Northern Ireland manager
I'm delighted. It's a nice thing to have these statistics [winning the first three qualifiers for the first time]. The workrate of the team and belief – I thought tonight every player was magnificent. [Kyle] Lafferty has been fantastic in the three qualifiers. His physical size, technique and pace – when he puts that together and he's playing against international defenders, they can't handle him.

Steven Davis, Northern Ireland captain
We have had two difficult away games and to come out of it with six points and beat the Faroes at home has been an unbelievable start. Now we have to carry on that momentum, keep picking up points consistently and give ourselves as good a chance as possible.

It was a difficult game. We expected Greece to have a lot of possession, which they did. We kept them at bay really well and limited them to chances and shots from range. Every game is going to be tough in this group. You'll see teams beating each other and taking points off each other. We need to be at our best.

Vasilis Torosidis, Greece captain
It's not the defeat that hurts so much, but the display. We don't play as we used to. There have been several changes in and around the team, but they cannot be used as an excuse because we are experienced players. I am sad, we have lost our identity. Our fans should keep their hopes up, though. There are still seven matches left.

Giorgios Samaras, Greece forward
We lost fair and square. We need to show some character now and keep going. There are seven more games and we'll give our all to go through. We were very good at the World Cup but in our last three games something has been missing – I don't know what. We need to show some character, to go out and fight from now on.