We hear from Man City coach Nick Cushing after his team grabbed an extra time winner against gutsy Birmingham to win a league/league cup double.
On the game:
I’m really pleased we’ve won the trophy. This trophy is really important to me because in the first year I was in my first year at this level and I was so glad to win it, so I wanted to win it back. We weren’t great today. We were good but we weren’t good enough. We found a way but we have to review this game bcause we’ve got Champions League on Thursday and we have to be better.
On Birmingham making them work for it:
Yeah they did. I knew they would make us work for it. One, because it’s a final and two, because they’re an unbelievably hard team to beat and I think that’s shown in their league form and their defensive record. So we knew we’d have to be good but on about 65-70 minutes I thought we were going to play until next Sunday and still not score. We dominated the ball, we got it into the final third and then the last pass and the final ball wasn’t good enough. It doesn’t matter who we played today…that game was like the Liverpool game here and at theirs, we dominated the ball, we created openings and opportunities behind them and down the side of them but the last bit neither goalkeeper had anything to do really until we scored and that was a bit of a crash bang wallop from a set-peice.
On whether he thought it might go to penalties v Birmingham:
On the double and what could be a momentous few weeks:
Yeah the season isn’t over for us and the season won’t be over until the last game and we hope the last game is the 16th November, the last round of the Champions League. But I said to the players before this game that noone’s going to hand you wins in football. No matter what league, what level, what age, they don’t give you the game you have to earn the right to win and Zvezda will be the same. We’ll enjoy this one for tonight. Same as last week.They’ll probably go out and have some food and chill out but we have got a big game on Thursday and do you know what, this is my opinion, on Thursday and the subsequent ChampionsLeague games if we get there, then we’ll see how good we really are.
On whether the double or fact that it is their first time in UWCL takes some of the pressure off:
There’s no pressure in the UWCL because it’s our first year. As a football club and as a team we’re unaware of what the UWCL is really about. So if we were to go in and go straight out there’s no questions to be answered but as a coach, I really want to put myself up against the best and I want to have to do the travelling and go around Europe and go to places tht might be a bit uncomfortable and play against the best teams. You don’t get into the UWCL unless you’re one of the best teams in your country so no pressure to go far in it but pressure from me because I want to come up against the best coaches and the best teams.
Ideal test ahead of UWCL game:
Probably is but we’d have liked it to maybe have been two weeks ago not four days before it. I’ve looked at Zvezda and they’re a bit similar in that they’re big, strong, they’ll work hard and try and stop us but we know and we’e said it from day one, we need to score more goals. If you look at our record we don’t concede goals but we don’t really score enough for the amount of ball that we’ve got, so we need to work hard on that on the training pitch to get better at that.
On if he’d had any news from the hospital (where his wife had gone earlier in the day, in labour):
There were no messages on my phone. I did say to her, if she goes into labour where she’s having the baby to drop me a message to say it’s happening but I’ve had no message, so that’s why I’m still here.
On if he was ever inending to leave the game:
No I was always gong to stay for the game, I have a job to do here and I want this team to be successful and finals and it’s great to win today but it’sall part of being better than we are today and we have to experience these games and the moments when we’re under the cosh and when we’re in control and I have to be part of that. So I had to stay and now I’ll go and do the family thing.
