New York City Interim Head Coach Nick Cushing believes the experience of Sunday’s win at Atlanta United provided a useful test for his team ahead of the playoffs.
The Boys in Blue endured a bittersweet afternoon in Georgia, storming into a two-goal lead with Gabriel Pereira and Héber goals, before Andrew Gutman halved the deficit, meaning the visitors had to battle to preserve the lead late on.
Frustrating injuries to Tayvon Gray, Talles Magno and Alfredo Morales throughout made the challenge all the more difficult but the MLS Cup Champions held on for a fourth successive win to secure third place in the Eastern Conference and set-up next weekend's match-up with Inter Miami CF.
Cushing was pleased with his side’s overall display, adding the various elements to the game proved valuable learning experiences for the upcoming 2022 playoffs.
“The team is really happy,” he reflected. “We’d never won here so that was a real desire of ours: to come here and win.
“The overriding feeling personally for me is that I’m really proud to finish third, proud to have gone through the difficult period and finish strongly with four wins – three wins in the league – and now we have the home playoff game.
“We’re in form and we knew there was an opportunity to finish third, which is a position higher than last year, and I thought we were really good for 65-70 minutes.
“We shifted it a little bit today – you can see how we did that when you watch the game – and I thought it made us even more solid and gave us balance against a really good Atlanta team.
“That Atlanta team I think is probably one of the best possession teams in the league, and I thought it worked perfectly in that first 65 minutes – we protected the goal well and we create chances to get the win.
“The goal and a couple other chances in the second half show the real quality that we have in our roster and the ability that we have to really hurt teams when we can move the ball, switch the play and get into those moments in and around the final third where we can create chances.
“We missed some opportunities to go three or four-nil up and we knew we were going to be put under pressure in moments because the nature of Atlanta’s offensive game is potentially the best in the league, if you give them space and let them counter-attack.
“They put us under pressure because they wanted to finish strongly. That’s not the game we want to play but [it shows] our ability to suffer and defend the box, and ability to hang on to win in the last 15 minutes.
“I said to the players that we don't want games to end like that. Maybe in playoff games they do end like that but we have to make sure that it’s five minutes not 25 minutes.
“We were forced into a few changes and although I can bring all of those players off the bench, we probably wouldn't have made the changes that that we made in the sense of five changes: two in the first half, three in one go. We were just forced by the way that the game played out with injuries.
“I've learned from the team that we can adapt and we’re flexible in the roster we have. We’re really happy, pleased.”
With the injuries to Gray, Talles Magno and Morales, Cushing admitted there are concerns regarding their fitness for the playoffs but says the severity of the setbacks is still to be determined.
“Of course, we’re concerned about Talles, Tayvon and Alfredo,” he conceded,’ “but we’ll give our medical team space.
“We’ll wait for an update. I'll tell you one thing: we haven't ruled them out as really serious yet, but it is the initial period.
“We trust them. We know we have a strong Performance Team here and they’ve shown that by getting guys fit and healthy from our rough period.
“It’s a foot injury for Tavon, it's a shoulder injury for Talles and it looks like a calf for Alfredo. The severity of them, we don't know.
“I'm disappointed because if you look at the way that we finished [the season], I feel like if we would have had a healthy roster or maybe not had been decimated by injuries, we've shown that we could finish in those top two spots.
“At the same time, we have to understand that teams grow through these moments where injuries and suspensions may give you challenges, and you have to you have to find solutions for them.
“[We had] a lot of injuries here today but we've shown that no matter what teams throw at us – even with really good offensive players – that togetherness in the team and the spirit of the team can drag us over the line.
“I'm really proud that the players have shown the togetherness and as a group – staff and players – we've shown that no matter what challenges get thrown at us that we can find solutions, we can stick together and we can finish really strongly going into the playoffs with momentum.”
