New York City Football Club Head Coach Ronny Deila praised his team’s desire and energy following Saturday’s tie with Vancouver Whitecaps.
The Boys in Blue played out a 0-0 result against the Whitecaps but enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, creating almost double the number of attempts compared to their opponents. Reflecting on the game, Deila said he felt NYCFC did enough to claim victory and trusts the goals will come.
“I think we were much better than them,” he said. “We created six, seven, eight chances. We didn't take our chances and we gave them one or two. That's good when you are away. There was really good energy was a lot of fight in the team. We created enough to win, but we didn't take our chances today. We just can keep on defending well and create chances. We know we have players that will start scoring”
Saturday’s game also saw the team register their first clean sheet in MLS this season. The consequence of strong defending by NYCFC, they reduced Vancouver to just a single effort on target during the 90 minutes.
“We knew exactly how they were going to play so it was a lot about balance in the counter-attacks,” Deila explained. “It was about moving the ball well so we’d get it into the final third as much as possible. In the end of the game it opened up a bit more that’s why we introduced Thiago Martins into the field. We wanted a goal at the same time so we tried to get two strikers, but it wouldn’t go in today but that’s how football is sometimes. It's about belief, continuing what we’re doing, create enough chances, and as I said before, we have players that can score goals.”
