Hudson River Blue spoke with New York City FC manager Ronny Deila for an exclusive interview at the Etihad City Football Academy training facility in Rockland County, NY where members of the Senior Team were preparing for Saturday’s match against Northeast Conference rivals Toronto FC.
Note: This interview was edited for clarity.
Hudson River Blue: It’s been a rocky start to the year, and it seems that the on-field cohesion isn’t what it was last year.
Ronny Deila: What do you mean?
In terms of the chemistry, and how the team is playing on the field.
I don’t know if I agree with that. There are some new pieces in the team, and I think if you’re going into the first games of the year you’re going to have some moments. A good player will always take a little bit of time to click with everything. But I feel we—against Philadelphia we were having the ball 72% of the game. It was more about how we opened up in the last third, and that we win the ball in good situations. We can make them unbalanced also, not only “play, play, play.”
