Wellington Phoenix head coach Giancarlo Italiano has declared himself really happy with the response to last week’s defeat to Newcastle Jets.
The Jets ran away with a 4-1 victory in Newcastle last Friday after holding a slender 1-nil lead at halftime.
The Phoenix have had a full week to prepare for this Friday night’s match against Melbourne City at Sky Stadium.
“It’s been really positive,” Italiano said when he spoke to media after training on Thursday. “It’s probably been the best training [week] we’ve had all season.
“If you zoom in on the second half performance [against Newcastle] we let ourselves down from a structural point and tactical point, there were a couple of things we didn’t execute well and we got punished for it.
“But if we zoom out over the last four games we’ve been moving to where we need to be. It’s just now knuckling down on the consistency.
“We’ve had two results; [one] where we’ve played with 10 men and one result where we were two-nil down at halftime and came back.
“We played teams that were potentially going to be first and we knocked them off, so a lot of positives.
“That was the thing that I had to reiterate with the group that it’s not doom and gloom, it’s just one half of football and now we just need to knuckle down and get back to what’s working for us and identify the things that aren’t working.”
Friday night’s match against City is the men’s 500th in the A-League. Italiano has been at the club for the past 176, first as an assistant and more recently as head coach.
He has “many good memories” and is “hopefully going to build some more good memories”.
“I genuinely believe. and I’ve said it from day one, this group has the ability to win the league this year.
“I don’t look at any game and go ‘we’ve been completely outplayed’ it’s just moments and I think the group sees that as well.
“We just need one moment, one symbolic moment in one of these next two games that brings us all together and building those performances week in, week out.
“It’s probably been the best group I’ve been part of in seven years. Everyone’s connected and everyone’s in a good spot so I’m hoping for the fans we can win a trophy this year.”
City enter round 15 just one place and two points above the Nix after a shock 6-2 defeat to Macarthur FC last weekend.
Italiano still regards the reigning champions as a “very good team”.
“I say this about a lot of the teams in the league. On their day they’re very, very hard to play.
“You only have to go back two games, they beat Auckland and I thought they were really good in that game and they deserved to win.
“I think the 6-2 doesn’t really tell the whole story of the game. Macarthur came out and pressed them aggressively, they’d just lost [Kai] Trewin and had a bit of a rebalance in the squad and in total I think Macarthur had 16 chances with eight on target and six of them went in.
“It was one of those games where they just got punished for everything. But they’re champions for a reason and we need to be on top of our game for the whole 90.”
Giancarlo Italiano is keen to bring Sander Kartum into his side after the Norwegian attacking midfielder scored moments after making his debut as a substitute against Newcastle Jets, but Kartum might not be physically ready.
“That’s an ongoing discussion with the staff. We have to put player welfare first.
“I’ve got two players in that position where I want them starting, that’s Nikola Mileusnic and Sander.
“Sander is being integrated slowly. He also had a hip injury before he left Scotland so we’re monitoring that.
“If you ask me personally, I’d start him and play him until he falls over, same with Nikola, but we have to manage their injuries and respect the advice from the medical staff.
“I want them playing more and we’re trying to push them as much as we can. It’s just a very fine and delicate situation to balance.
“We also have got Bill [Tuiloma] that’s come into the team and is in the same boat [and] he hasn’t played for a large chunk of time.
“We have to really be responsible because last year I maybe made an error last year when I rushed a player back in and then he was out for a longer period than what was expected.”
The round 15 Isuzu UTE A-League match between the Wellington Phoenix and Melbourne City is scheduled to kick-off at Sky Stadium in Wellington at 7pm Friday and will be broadcast LIVE on Sky Sport 2 in New Zealand, and on Paramount+ in Australia.
Most recent meeting: 28 February 2025 – Wellington Phoenix 0 Melbourne City 1
All-time A-League head-to-head: Phoenix 12W, City 21W & 8D.
Wellington Phoenix squad (two to be omitted): 3. Corban PIPER, 4. Manjrekar JAMES, 5. Fin ROA CONCHIE, 6. Tim PAYNE, 7. Ifeanyi EZE, 8. Paulo RETRE, 10. Nikola MILEUSNIC, 11. Carlo ARMIENTO, 14. Alex RUFER (c), 15. Isaac HUGHES, 16. Sander KARTUM, 18. Lukas KELLY-HEALD, 20. Ramy NAJJARINE, 24. Xuan LOKE, 25. Kazuki NAGASAWA, 27. Matt SHERIDAN, 28. Bill TUILOMA, 29. Luke BROOKE-SMITH, 30. Alby KELLY-HEALD (gk), 40. Eamonn MCCARRON (gk).
Unavailable: 1. Josh OLUWAYEMI (gk) (injured), 12. Dan EDWARDS (injured), 19. Nathan WALKER (injured).
Melbourne City squad (two to be omitted): 1. Patrick BEACH (gk), 4. Liam BONETIG, 8. Ryan TEAGUE, 10. Takeshi KANAMORI, 14. Daniel ARZANI, 16. Aziz BEHICH (c), 17. Max CAPUTO, 19. Zane SCHREIBER, 20. Ben MAZZEO, 21. Alessandro LOPANE, 22. Germán FERREYRA, 26. Samuel SOUPRAYEN, 28. Marcus YOUNIS, 30. Andreas KUEN, 35. Medin MEMETI, 36. Harry SHILLINGTON, 37. Peter ANTONIOU, 40. James NIEUWENHUIZEN (gk), 41. Lawrence WONG, 44. Besian KUTLESHI.
Unavailable: 7. Mathew LECKIE (injured), 11. Elbasan RASHANI (injured), 13. Nathaniel ATKINSON (suspensed), 15. Andrew NABBOUT (injured), 33. Dakota OCHSENHAM (injured), 39. Emin DURAKOVIC (injured), 47. Kavian RAHMANI (injured).
