What to do with Nick Cushing? I say give him more time

We are an absolute disaster right now - no two ways about it. We have been just infuriating to watch for waaaay to long now. Each loss has felt like a new rock bottom, but each week I am surprised to find a newer, and rockier bottom to fall into with additional losses to considerably underwhelming opponents.

NE Revolution beat NYCFC 3-0 at Gillete Stadium (Via New England Revolution)

Understandably, the #cushingout train has begun to rev its engine on twitter, with many calling for the manager’s sacking despite his relatively recent appointment following the departure of Ronny Deila.

But, I still think its too early to make this call. In my opinion, I think we should stick with Nick Cushing for the remainder of the season.

NYCFC Interim Head Coach Nick Cushing (Via MLS)

The main reason I feel this way is that I don’t think City Football Group are prepared to make a managerial decision right now.

Judging by how the club has handled everything up to this point, I just feel like their plan all along has been to have Cushing see out the rest of this season as interim manager. If we ended up doing great, then Cushing would remain “the guy” and would be made permanent manager. If we fell short of expectations, then I would assume the club would scan the market for potential long-term replacements at the helm to re-kindle the Ronny-era success.

But, I don’t think anyone at the club expected the free-fall that has ensued following the Deila and Taty exits mid-summer. And now, the club is being put in an uncomfortable position. They could go after a new managerial target now with these playoffs in mind, but how great of a fit could this manager possibly be given how short of a time frame we’ve had to work with? And, given the launch of most domestic campaigns world-wide this past month, how many quality managers are available for transfer just a few weeks into a new season?

Nick Cushing leading training (Via NYCFC)

Now, let’s focus back inwards to Cushing himself as a manager, and what it would take for someone to replace him. He’s been with the squad for a while now, and lifted MLS cup with these players just 9 months ago. He’s tactically sufficient, and is clearly admired by CFG as someone who fits "their model”. And, quite simply, here’s already here.

Those are hard things to give up regardless, but especially on short notice. And, I think you could make an argument that Cushing has been pretty unfortunate so far in his NYCFC tenure.

We are dealing with the worst injury crises I can recall as an NYCFC fan, with Alex Callens, Thiago Martins, Keaton Parks, Anton Tinnerholm, and Alfredo Morales all being sidelined at the same time. Frankly, that’s ridiculously unfortunate. Those are 5 shoe-in starters for us when healthy, and basically leaves us spineless as a team trying to deal with those absences all at once: physically and mentally.

A sidelined Keaton Parks works his way back to fitness (via NYCFC)

But despite this, we’ve been tactically superior to our opponents in most of our recent matches (despite loosing all of them). This was especially evident this past weekend with our maddening 3-0 defeat to New England, where we dominated the game but just couldn't find the back of the net, and conceded familiarly frustrating goals on individual defensive errors.

So, do I think this NYCFC needs a kick in the ass? Absolutely. But sacking Cushing with just weeks to go before the MLS Cup playoffs would just feel too panic-filled, and might not set the club up well for success long-term. In my eyes, I think right now we have to just hope our injured players get back healthy soon, and that Cushing and these returning veteran leaders can inspire some of the confidence and momentum we saw earlier this season.