Wellington Phoenix head coach Giancarlo Italiano is welcoming a meeting with the side he regards as the “best team in the comp”, despite the Phoenix’s recent struggles.
The Nix are playing host to high-flying Adelaide United at Sky Stadium on Saturday afternoon, eight days after a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Melbourne City left them five points adrift of the top six.
It was Wellington’s fourth defeat in five matches. They only lost three times during the 2023-24 round-robin.
In contrast the Reds have been beaten just once in their opening 10 matches and sit just two points off the top of the table.
Remarkably they’ve won all five of their matches away from Adelaide this season.
“I think they’re the best team in the comp at the moment, by far,” Italiano told media before training on Friday.
“Stylistically, the football the playing, they’re very brave and on the front foot, good combinations and their build up is very good.
“The unit from last year they’ve built on. They’ve brought in two really good players in [Dylan] Pierias and [Ben] Folami that give them a lot of speed in the wide areas and then the rest of the core of players are from the year before, which helps.
“They’re just effective. They work very hard off the ball as well and are very dangerous.
“But I’m actually looking forward to the match because I love playing against good teams, especially with the ball.
“It challenges us to be just as good as them, if not better.”
Italiano concedes confidence has dropped within the playing group, “but nothing that hard work and a little bit of courage won’t get us through”.
“It’s an opportunity to show what the boys are capable of.
“Of course, confidence is down. It’s understandable when you lose four out of the past five games.
“But it’s no different to pre-season and we turned it around in the first part of the season.
“I think one good half of football, a good performance, and hard work will get us through and we can turn the season around.
“Momentum can always swing the other way. You get a couple of wins and all of a sudden everyone believes again.
“It’s not that the boys don’t believe at the moment. It’s understandable when you do lose a couple of games to question yourself, but there’s enough resilience in the group that we can get through this.”
Giancarlo Italiano will again be without club captain Alex Rufer through illness, and fullback Tim Payne has been ruled out with the foot injury he has been carrying for the past two weeks.
“We were still hopeful yesterday that Payney was fine to play, but it looks like at this stage it’ll be too much of a risk.
“We’ve got a huge turnover of games so the rest at this stage is more imperative than him playing or risking him.”
As a result of the absences Italiano will lean on more of his younger players and adapt the Phoenix’s playing style accordingly.
“We have a lot of starting players out and that is putting that pressure on the younger guys.
“It’s not so much they can’t do it, it’s just whether there’s cohesion enough between the players that are starting and whether they can execute what’s required at the consistency that we require.
“You can train all you want but the games are completely different and when teams start pressing things get difficult.
“We’ve modified it for the players that are starting and training has been great this week. Intensity has been good.”
Adelaide United are also without their captain with fullback Ryan Kitto missing the trip to Wellington for personal reasons.
The round 13 Isuzu UTE A-League match between the Wellington Phoenix and Adelaide United is scheduled to kick-off at Sky Stadium in Wellington at 5pm Saturday and will be broadcast LIVE on Sky Sport 2 in New Zealand and on Paramount+ in Australia.
Most recent meeting: 3 March 2024 – Wellington Phoenix 3 Adelaide United 2
All-time A-League head-to-head: Phoenix 12W, Adelaide 22W & 15D.
Wellington Phoenix squad (one to be omitted):1. Josh OLUWAYEMI (gk), 3. Corban PIPER, 4. Scott WOOTTON, 5. Fin ROA CONCHIE, 7. Kosta BARBAROUSES, 8. Paulo RETRE, 9. Hideki ISHIGE, 12. Mo AL-TAAY, 15. Isaac HUGHES, 17. Gabriel SLOANE-RODRIGUES, 18. Lukas KELLY-HEALD, 19. Sam SUTTON, 23. Luke SUPYK, 25. Kazuki NAGASAWA, 27. Matt SHERIDAN, 29. Luke BROOKE-SMITH, 30. Alby KELLY-HEALD (gk), 39. Jayden SMITH, 41. Nathan WALKER.Unavailable: 6. Tim PAYNE (injured), 11. Stefan COLAKOVSKI (injured), 14. Alex RUFER (c) (illness), 21. Marco ROJAS (injured).
Adelaide United squad (two to be omitted): 1. James DELIANOV (gk), 3. Bart VRIENDS, 6. Stefan MAUK, 8. ISAÍAS, 9. Luka JOVANOVIĆ, 10. Zach CLOUGH, 12. Jonny YULL, 14. Jay BARNETT, 17. Ben FOLAMI, 19. Yaya DUKULY, 20. Dylan PIERIAS, 21. Javi LÓPEZ, 23. Luke DUZEL, 26. Archie GOODWIN, 40. Ethan COX (gk), 42. Austin AYOUBI, 44. Ryan WHITE, 51. Panagiotis KIKIANIS, 55. Ethan ALAGICH, 62. Fabian TALLADIRA.
Unavailable: 4. Jordan ELSEY (injured), 7. Ryan KITTO (personal reasons), 54. Bailey O’NEIL (injured).
Main image: Cam McIntosh/Photomac.
