NYCFC, Cushing: "Haak is back. We must be careful with Tinnerholm"

New York City Interim Head Coach Nick Cushing has confirmed Midfielder Justin Haak is back in contention for Saturday’s trip to Charlotte FC.

The Head Coach also revealed Keaton Parks will again be named in the matchday squad but is unlikely to start, while Gedion Zelalem is set to feature with Thiago Martins, Nico Acevedo and Maxime Chanot all suspended.

“The positive is that Justin is back,” he stated. “Justin Haak will be in contention.

“It’s more than likely that Anton will miss out again, and we’ll prioritize Wednesday, and then next Saturday.

“Anton has just gone through the process now of seeing whether we can push him, but we have to be really careful with Anton because we’ve pushed him previously and we lost him to the hamstring.

“It’s a bit different [to Parks’ return] because he’s played regular minutes, and he'd played some regular minutes leading up to the hamstring injury. Once he’s fit, he could start a game but to think that he will go 90 minutes is unrealistic, especially in the types of game [we have]: a Cup Final or a Hudson River Derby.

“It's a real positive that he had two or three games before he had the hamstring injury. We just need to make sure that the hamstring is conditioned.

“Keaton’s not ready to start the game but he’ll definitely be in the squad. We just have to be really strategic with getting Keaton back because of the nature of the injury. We have to get him back to being able to start games as quickly as possible but it’s going to be a process.

“I think anything towards 30 minutes for him will be a huge positive. To think that he can go for a full half after not playing for two months is unrealistic for him so anything towards 30 minutes will be a huge positive, but obviously, where we are in the game will dictate that"