Nick Cushing believes Wednesday night’s Champions League quarter-final clash provides the perfect test for City.
The Blues host Linkoping at the Academy Stadium in the first leg of the last eight encounter, having suffered an uncharacteristic dip in form of late.
Under the floodlights on home soil and eager to gain a strong advantage to take to Sweden in a week’s time, Cushing has called for his side to bounce back and kick-start another winning run.
“We’re fully confident in our ability – the players and the staff,” he declared. “When you get into such a consistency of winning, when you do lose a game, it’s a shock to the system.
“You have to adapt to what’s happening. We have to be really realistic – nobody always wins. You have to end up losing. Not winning is part of the game and it’s about how you react to that.
“The team has gone through a crucial period we needed. You don’t want to lose games but it’s getting harder and hard to win, and having to find the reaction to not winning is what the best teams do.
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“There’s no better place to start winning again than on a Champions League night.
“Not everybody gets to play in the Champions League – there are only two teams from our league who get to play and we’ve been really lucky over the last two seasons that we’re one of those teams.
“We’re all excited and we want to get back to winning ways.”
Sharing his thoughts on our Swedish opponents, Cushing added: “We know everything there is to know about them – they’re a very economical, hard and robust team.
“I remember watching them in 2014 when they played Liverpool in our first season. Liverpool beat them in the home leg and went away on the night we won the Continental Tyres Cup, and Linkoping beat them to knock them out.
“They’ve had a little dip in recent years and haven’t played in the Champions League but they’re a difficult team.
“We know we’re a good team and if we play and perform well, we’ll give ourselves every chance of winning.”
Tickets for City’s home leg quarter-final tie with Linkoping (Wednesday 21 March, 7pm) are on sale and are available to buy online via tickets.mancity.com or at the Etihad Stadium Ticket Office.
