STRONG WORDS: Andre Schurrle has urged Germany to be more ruthless in front of goal

The world champions have not looked their normally ruthless selves in France and laboured to a 1-0 win over minnows Northern Ireland in Paris.

Their winner came from veteran Mario Gomez, recalled up front at the expense of Mario Gotze, who played wide instead.

The Germans have only scored three goals in three games and Gomez is their only striker to have hit the target, with Gotze and the usually lethal Thomas Muller both drawing blanks.

Ex-Chelsea winger Schurrle said: "If you saw the first half against Northern Ireland you would see that our strikeforce is functioning very good. We made chances, we hit the post and the bar.

"But we need the killer instinct in the next stages. We had six or seven good chances against Northern Ireland.

"You may only get two or three chances against other teams and then if you concede you go out, so we need to improve this.

"We need to get this killer instinct to really score and then we can go far."

Schurrle also suggested the Germans, who are in the tougher side of the draw, prefer to play with a target man like Gomez or Muller up front instead of a false nine like Gotze.

He said: "I wouldn't say easier like that. But it's a little bit different. Maybe you don't always have somebody in the box for a cross when you play with a false nine.

"We were always confident against Northern Ireland. We knew what to expect. We knew they would play with the hearts, because they deserve to be here.

"We were confident we would win. But at 1-0 there can always be a set piece or something. It can always happen. 1-0 is a dangerous score. We need to be learn from this."