New York City Football Club Interim Head Coach Nick Cushing said his side will take both the positives and negatives from Sunday’s defeat against Philadelphia Union.
The Boys in Blue thought they had secured a point after a late penalty from Taty Castellanos tied the game at 1-1. Unfortunately, a late Union effort that deflected off Corey Burke handed the hosts an advantage and ultimately all three points. Speaking afterward, Cushing said that in evaluating the performance he would consider both the positives and negatives of the 90 minutes.
“I don't think we will just put this game behind us,” he said “I think we'll look at the first half and why we didn't get the control that we wanted and we'll look at the second half and look at why we gained more control. We'll take the positives out of it and we'll move on to Cincinnati and we'll discuss the negatives so that we can try and put them right going into the next game. It’s difficult to turn around in two days when the opposition has had five days, but it's the nature of MLS.”
Elsewhere, Cushing also hailed the return of Anton Tinnerholm as ‘incredible’. The Swedish defender made his competitive return as a second-half substitute after sustaining an Achilles injury in October last year, and drew the penalty that earned NYCFC a route back into the game.
“We knew that we needed to be better in the lower parts of the game so that we could get the team up the pitch and then we could start to switch the play,” he said. “Putting in Anton Tinnerholm - it was incredible to have him back. We know the experience he has in these types of games. We put Malte [Amundsen] on because he’s in the rhythm of playing and we knew he had a half of football in him. There were some tactical adjustments so that we could get up the pitch and start to dominate and control the game with possession. I thought we did that in the second half.”
