Patrick Vieira led his men to a 1-0 victory in Montreal on a night where Jack Harrison scored his 10th goal of the season. After the match, Vieira fielded questions from reporters, many of which centered around the young Englishman's improvement as a player.
"He's a better player today than he was last year," said Patrick. "He's working really hard for the team and when we played the way we played today, we're always creating chances, and he scored a fantastic goal.
"There's no doubt about his talent, but he needs to keep working hard to keep developing his talent."
Vieira knows that Jack isn't a finished product quite yet, but the gaffer knows what it will take for him to make the leap.
"His work ethic," answered Vieira when asked about the key to Jack's improvement. "His work ethic in training has been fantastic, and when you have the talent and the work ethic, it's good, you're always going to be a very good player.
"I'm not surprised with the goal he scored because I think he's got the talent to do it, but I still want more from Jack."
Wanting more from his players is a hallmark of Vieira's coaching philosophy. He knows just how good his players are, and he's unwilling to accept anything less than the results to match. Tonight, NYCFC got the result they were after, but they created many more chances than they did goals. As one reporter put it, City could have had six on the night.
"We created a lot of chances, but at the end we only scored one goal," acknowledged Vieira.
"I think that is our problem this season. I think we don't score enough, I think we have to have this kind of ruthlessness in front of the goal because anything can happen during the game. [Montreal] were really close to scoring a goal and then we'd be sorry for ourselves.
"We have to finish the game much earlier, especially when we created so many chances like we did today."
Even though the finishing touch wasn't always present in tonight's victory, the effort from Vieira's men was. With just a handful of games left to lock up second place in the league and a first-round playoff bye, the Head Coach knows that's not going to change.
"We concentrate on each game, because it's important for us to perform well and win the game," assured Vieira. "We want to finish as high as we can, so we want to finish second. Atlanta is fighting for the second spot, Chicago is there fighting for the second spot as well, so anything can happen at the end of the season.
"Something I can guarantee you is that every single player will be focused, working hard, and trying to win our next game, because it is important for us to build this momentum. It is important for us to play well, to win games, because more games that we win, the more we will build confidence."
