How will Nick Cushing shuffle his lineup in Cincinnati?

New York City FC head coach Nick Cushing faces a squad selection dilemma for the trip to TQL Stadium to face FC Cincinnati on Matchday 5.

Keaton Parks is suspended after his 68th-minute red card in the win over Toronto FC, while six first-team players are absent on international duty. Both of Cushing’s preferred center-forwards, Mounsef Bakrar and Jovan Mijatović, are out. Absent, too, will be each of Cushing‘s preferred right-backs, Mitja Ilenič and Tayvon Gray.

How will Cushing line his team up, knowing he’s at a distinct disadvantage at two key positions? Will New York City stick with a defensive back four, or will the trip to Cincinnati bring with it a formation change? Will there be player debuts, or first starts handed to new signings?

Let’s run through all the potential lineup and personnel scenarios and try to settle on the New York City FC Starting XI that will try to pull off the upset against Luciano Acosta and company.

Cushing’s back-three tendencies

Three-at-the-back formations haven’t been the outright norm for New York City FC under Nick Cushing, but they have been utilized with some frequency, especially late in the 2022 season and during the summer of 2023 when injuries and international absences wreaked havoc on the NYCFC defense.

That changed when Birk Risa joined the squad from Molde FK. The Norwegian’s signing ushered in a consistent back-four anchored by the central defensive pairing of Risa and Thiago Martins.

It stands to reason that that defensive duo will once again start in Cincy, but will they get a third central defender to join them? That might depend on how dedicated Nick Cushing is to deploying three central defenders when he faces this weekend’s opponent.

In each of his last four head-to-head meetings with Pat Noonan’s FC Cincinnati, Cushing has lined his New York City teams up with three center-backs. NYCFC earned one draw and suffered three losses in those four games, so a three-back setup hasn’t translated to success when facing the most recent winners of the MLS Supporters’ Shield.

That subpar record included a most recent back-three of Risa, Thiago Martins, and Tayvon Gray in the club’s last (ugly, humbling, losing) trip to TQL Stadium, but Gray is unavailable. If Cushing is to try another back-three against Cincy, he’ll need to either slot in a versatile midfielder (James Sands, Justin Haak), or hand a New York City FC and MLS debut to one of his new offseason signings.

Enter Strahinja?

Strahinja Tanasijević was hailed for his versatility when announced as New York City’s first defensive addition of the winter. The club’s official release said he can play at right-back and in central defense, and Nick Cushing confirmed that when asked about the 26-year-old Serbian during his pre-Cincinnati press conference.

Cushing also said his team had not been working in any new formations, like a back-three, leading up to the Cincinnati game, which might be true, or it might be a classic piece of tactical misdirection from a coach when speaking publicly.

Will Tanasijević be asked to debut with his new team by starting at right-back, a position he has played but not played all that often, while on the road and facing one of the toughest teams in the league?

It’s a tough ask, but this is not an 18-year-old making his professional debut. Tanasijević is 26 years old and recently made 78 appearances across six seasons with four different clubs in the Serbian Super Liga.

Penciling Strahinja in on the right allows Cushing to keep the team in the shape it has played through the first four games, providing a level of continuity that could outweigh the risks of throwing a new player into the fray in a tough road game.

That allows James Sands to remain in the central midfield, where he can be the stay-at-home, out-and-out defensive midfielder, while Andrés Perea operates more in box-to-box mode with some freedom to get upfield when game flow allows it.

Perhaps Kevin O’Toole becomes the fullback with more freedom and liberty to advance alongside the NYCFC attack, while Tanasijević focuses on putting in a Tayvon Gray-like stay-at-home defensive shift on the right?

Defensive balance will be necessary because the attack also has a big, glaring question mark right at its tip.

Case of The Missing Strikers

Mounsef Bakrar might have frustrated many a New York City FC supporter through four games, putting nine shots on target and producing 1.4 expected goals (xG) without finding the back of the net.

Yet Bakrar’s abilities to get behind defenses, be in dangerous attacking positions, and be a part of good scoring chances will be missed in Cincinnati while he’s with the Algeria national team. Yes, his lack of finishing touch has been a letdown, but Bakrar’s absence is doubly damaging because even the club’s other natural option at the 9, Jovan Mijatović, is away on international duty with Serbia’s U-19s.

Cushing has not shied away from operating sans striker, and that looks like what he’ll be forced to do in Cincinnati, likely asking an attacking midfielder like Santiago Rodríguez or Hannes Wolf to operate as a center-forward.

For this exercise, let’s put Wolf at the top of the attack as the day’s center-forward. During preseason when Wolf had first joined the team, Cushing did mention his ability to play as a No 9, and he and Santi Rodríguez have seemed to occupy similar roles in the team’s attack so far this season, each given the freedom to drift positionally.

Rolling with one of Hannes or Santi at “striker” also opens up a spot on the left of the attack for a player like Agustín Ojeda, who has thus far seen only 18 minutes of MLS action as a sub in St. Louis.

Ojeda arrived from Racing Club with much hype and at a hefty transfer price, and while SuperDraftee Malachi Jones impressed during preseason and in his MLS NEXT Pro debut last weekend, this feels like a chance to see what “Trapito” can do in MLS.

Ojeda and his Argentine compatriot Julián Fernández, fresh off a stunning match-winning assist vs. Toronto FC, operating on either flank while Rodríguez and Wolf act as the creators in the middle of the field is an intriguing attacking setup that could dull some of the pain of having no clear-cut striker to choose from.

Enough talk, what’s the lineup?

All the many words I’ve written above can be summed up as: My best lineup guess is that Cushing wants to stick with a back-four, trusts Tanasijević to slide in for a shift as a right-back, will have Wolf and Santi interchanging as his No 9s and No 10s, and will give Agustín Ojeda a first MLS start on the left wing.

This would give the team a greater sense of continuity than might be expected for a squad without seven players to choose from, allows more chemistry to build between core attacking players Wolf, Santi, and Fernández, and gives two newcomers chances to debut in relatively familiar positions without too much disruption to the rest of the squad.

An alternative Starting XI I considered, but did not create a lineup graphic for a la the one above, would still include Tanasijević but as a central defender in a back-three.

A back-three with Strahinja in the middle alongside Birk Risa and Thiago Martins means Andres Jasson would be asked to function as right-wingback, which he’s done before. That would also mean Ojeda remained on the bench, giving New York City a 5-2-3 look which could shift to a 3-4-3 in attack, with a front three of Rodríguez, Wolf, and Fernández.

Cushing might go that route, but it would be a more conservative route and a departure from how NYCFC has looked through four games in 2024.

Is either potential lineup just discussed going to be enough to earn a surprise win on the road against one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference? New York City FC has better depth on hand than it did a season ago, but this trip to the Queen City represents a very early, very tough test of the quality of that depth.