NICK CUSHING was full of praise for Vivianne Miedema after seeing his gamble pay off with her scoring a brace in Manchester City’s 2-0 win over Chelsea in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final.

While City had Khadija Shaw and Aoba Fujino unavailable due to injury, interim boss Cushing opted to start with Miedema on the bench for the clash at the Academy Stadium.

Having subsequently been brought on for the start of the second half, the Netherlands international then put City in front on the hour mark, rifling in the rebound when Hannah Hampton tipped Laia Aleixandri’s header against the crossbar, and added a second finish with two minutes of normal time remaining.

Cushing said: “Viv starting on the bench tonight and coming off it is a bit of a gamble.

“But I knew Viv would be able to come for 45 and be a huge presence in the game, and you can see that with the result.

“I’m sure you can imagine what she said when I didn’t name her in the team. I expected it, I expect that from every world-class player when you don’t put them in. But the defining factor in what makes a real top player I think is what happens when you go on.

“Ten minutes before, I said ‘you’ll go in at half-time’, and I knew that before the game, [I said] ‘you’re going in to be the difference in a tight game’. To be able to do that, even though you wanted to play all the way through, I think shows her level.

“I was confident if she got chances she’d score, she is a top-level finisher. She’s frustrated because she thinks she should have had a hat-trick!”

The match was the second of four successive meetings between the sides, which started with Chelsea’s 2-1 triumph on Saturday in the League Cup final at Pride Park, continues with Sunday’s Women’s Super League clash at the City of Manchester Stadium, and concludes with next Thursday’s second leg at Stamford Bridge.

Cushing returned to City ahead of the quartet of fixtures, being given the interim role until the end of the season after Gareth Taylor was sacked.

And the 40-year-old, whose first spell in charge ended in 2020, said: “It’s crazy to think my last game [at the stadium] was the Arsenal game in 2019, it’s the first time I’ve been back since then.

“It was important for me tonight that the team put a performance in that I believe reflects us in this stadium, and I really wanted to win the game for the fans.”

For Chelsea, who hit the bar in the 80th minute via substitute Johanna Rytting Kaneryd, the result was a first defeat of the season. It ended an unbeaten run of 28 games since boss Sonia Bompastor took charge last summer – of which 26 were wins – and 31 matches in total.

Bompastor said: “I think we didn’t start to play from the beginning of the game. I think also we didn’t play with the desire we needed in the first half.

“The desire is sometimes the most important, the energy and making sure everyone is making all the effort for each other. I think maybe we were a little bit sloppy in that aspect.

“We only lost one game in the season, a big one, an important one, it happens, but now we need to stay positive.”