The Wellington Phoenix Blokes May Finally Be Poised To Make That Finals Run
We’ve reached that frisky point in the A-League where this season and next season begin to overlap. The finals are edging ever closer with most teams only having six games left. Places in the top six are being scrapped over. Home-field advantage is up for grabs. It’s unlikely anyone catches free-scoring Melbourne City for the minor premiership but every other spot from second on downwards feels like it’s in the balance. The table is ridiculously close this season with only one club standing out above the rest.
Yet at the same time preparations for next season also need to take place in the background and for the Wellington Phoenix, who always seem to exist on the fringes of an existential crisis, that’s rarely something to enjoy. Particularly on days like they had at the start of the month when it was revealed that Oli Sail, Clayton Lewis, and Steven Ugarkovic would all be departing at the end of the term.
Three starter-level players on the way out and all reportedly to rival A-League clubs. Sideways moves for the lot of them (unless anyone does a Cammy Devlin and gets that European out) but that’s their business, fair enough. Several more players coming to the end of their contracts too. However the real drama is the one that’s been simmering under the surface throughout this entire campaign: Will this be the last year of Ufuk Talay’s tenure as manager?
Talay ticked over a big milestone in the 1-0 win over Sydney FC, taking charge of his 100th A-League match. That’s including the couple when he wasn’t on the touchline as he dealt with a bout of covid, but he was still the manager, it was still his team. Still counts. 100 matches in charge... that makes Uffie the second longest serving manager in club history - only Ricki Herbert lasted longer. Talay is still chasing down a couple of Herbert’s overall records (RH had 56 total wins, Talay’s on 42, not to mention the postseason success) but Uffie has the best winning percentage, the best points per game average, and the best aggregate goal difference of any Welly Nix gaffer.
He also, in his first season at the club, guided the Nix to their best ever finish when they polished off a third-placed effort. Unfortunately the damned pandemic swung around and the team dropped off as they were forced to finish the term based in Australia and lost their elimination finals game 1-0 to Perth. Two more pandemic affected seasons followed, with the Phoenix’s exploits blunted by a lack of home games, yet Talay’s leadership still guided them to one finals appearance while only missing out via goal difference in the other. But they lost that finals game 1-0 to Western United.
Fair to say that there’s unfinished business here. Despite the consistent quality of Uffie’s Phoenix they’ve never won a finals game let alone had that one year when it all clicked and they went deep. Mate, they haven’t even scored a goal in either of those finals appearances. There have been injuries, there has been pandemicry, there’s been good old fashioned bad luck... but if the club’s most successful ever manager leaves without so much as a finals goal to his team’s name it’s going to be one of those eternal What-If conundrums.
Ufuk Talay signed a two-year extension at the end of his second year in charge. It was a massive boost in stability at a perilous time for the club, however that extension comes to an end after the 2022-23 term. The official word is that there continue to be ongoing talks towards keeping him around for longer although the club has also confirmed that they’re working on contingency plans in case he doesn’t recommit.
Gotta be honest, it’s not a great omen when players like Sail, Lewis, and Ugarkovic are all leaving. Talay has been influential in the careers of the two kiwis there while Ugarkovic mentioned Talay as a major reason for him choosing to sign with the Nix. If they’re all going then it kinda suggests that he’s going too. Then again, they’re supposedly all off to different clubs so at the very least it doesn’t sound like a Marko Rudan situation where the coach not only leaves but brings a bunch of key players along to a rival club.
Rudan handled that whole situation pretty poorly, never squashing the speculation either way. One thing we can trust about Talay is that he’ll play it straight. First of all you don’t get the idea that he’s eyeing up other A-League jobs while he’s still busy in this one. Talay is an ambitious manager who has expressed a desire to move overseas, same as several of the players he’s mentored have gone on to do. You’d hope that if an overseas gig doesn’t eventuate then he’ll stay at the Nix where he’s already established, though only time shall tell on that front.
But if he does decide to leave (and the ball’s in his court because the club clearly want to keep him) then we can safely assume that he’s not going to allow his impending departure to become a distraction. Nothing that will threaten to derail the rest of this season, not with so much left to achieve. He’s done well to get this far by shrugging things off and keeping the focus on the next game and that attitude should continue to filter throughout his squad, including to the likes of Sail/Lewis/Ugarkovic. They’re all pros and they’ll all want to go out on a high.
And you know what? That’s exactly the mentality that we, as fans, ought to be keeping too. Because after three promising seasons in which this team never quite reached the heights they were capable of this could yet be the one.
That table is extremely close. The Phoenix are fifth but only goal difference off third and they’re three points behind second-placed Adelaide... who they play on Friday night. They had a sloppy start prior to the World Cup break in which they couldn’t hold leads. They’ve picked up their defensive mahi since then to help grind out a few more results although the goals still aren’t flowing which is holding them back from full potential. But they’ve been winning games regardless, with room still to get better. That, friends, is an extremely promising place to find ourselves with six games plus finals remaining.
Welly Nix Results By Goals Scored in 22-23
0 goals – 0 W | 0 D | 0 L
1 goal – 3 W | 4 D | 4 L
2 goals – 2 W | 3 D | 1 L
3+ goals – 3 W | 0 D | 0 L
Quick note on that... the Nix have scored in every single game but have only added a second in half of those twenty matches. Three of the four times that they scored twice and failed to win were amongst the first seven games so that’s clearly something they’ve improved upon. Meanwhile Oskar Zawada has scored or assisted in 10 consecutive A-League games and in 13 of his last 15 games overall (12 goals, 1 assist)... but has never had two goal contributions in the same match. That is extremely emblematic of his team overall.
Hard not to argue that things are pointing in the right direction though. The team has been able to absorb the midseason departure of Ben Waine without any hiccups. The main reason for that has been Yan Sasse beginning to find his feet with his longest run of consecutive starts. The Brazilian is still a wild one who’ll alternate between something brilliant then something ridiculous with each involvement but he’s a fascinating dude to have on the park because he’s so different to the rest of the team. His gliding dribbles and that sneaky left foot cutting in from the right wing could be an x-factor the rest of the way. He’s a very good player. Too many folks wrote him off way too quickly.
Clayton Lewis should be back soon. They need his creativity in the middle along with his set piece deliveries, although Alex Rufer has been chugging along nicely in the meantime – the Nix have taken 20 points from the last 10 games with Rufer starting all of them after only getting 11 points from 10 games in the others when he wasn’t in those line-ups.
It might also soon be a conversation as to whether Kosta Barbarouses should start ahead of David Ball. Both are better facilitators than they are finishers and Ball’s got that inimitable workrate... but Kosta has still been the better source of goals throughout his ALM career and that extra directness might help Zawada get the second big chance per game he’s been lacking. It’s also fair to say that Ben Old and Oskar van Hattum had better stay ready because a single attacking injury from this point onwards thrusts them into the spotlight.
This team’s been scoring goals all along. Not enough of them but never none of them. It’s the defence that has taken a leap as things have progressed – including four clean sheet victories in the last ten matches after no cleanies in the first ten. Oli Sail’s stepped up his performances. That was always going to happen eventually. Plus Callan Elliot has really broken through as a starting right back, recently rewarded with his first All Whites call-up. He’s quality in both directions but it’s his attacking crossing that’s really doing the damage with a team-high four assists so far.
With Elliot commanding that wide spot, Tim Payne has been allowed to slide into the middle. The Scott Wootton/Joshua Laws combo was persevered with for most of the early stages but too many sloppy goals were being allowed past. Wootton and Tim Payne have been much more stable. They’re the two best pure defenders amongst the options available even if it does sacrifice that left-footer in the build-up play. But that was a necessary thing. Laws has still found a sneaky role in recent weeks popping up off the bench when the team needs to drop into a back three to protect a lead that they’d failed to put out of sight already.
Having said that: there has only been one game all season in which the ideal back four of Elliot/Wootton/Payne/Sutton has started. That was a 2-2 draw away against Melbourne City in game four of the season. Sutton’s had a couple injuries coupled with some decent showings from Lucas Mauragis in his spot. It does still feel like Sutton’s the better option overall but they’ve both got their advantages so it’s not a huge swing either way. Sutton’s more technical, he’s better in possession, he’s probably a bit stronger in the challenge too. But Mauragis is lighting quick and he knows his positioning much better. Both of them whip in a mean cross. Both of them have the occasional defensive lapse.
These are all those proverbial ‘good problems to have’. We’re talking about how to maximise the best players in the team, rather than last year’s issues of wondering who the hell is even going to play when half the team is out injured. Nah, these are the concerns of a team with capabilities. A team that’s planning on breaking a few hearts... rather than being on the other side of that equation.
This may or may not be Ufuk Talay’s last season at the helm and it’ll definitely be the end for a trio of players with more to surely follow – although there are eleven players contracted for next season including all of the imports except for Sasse. There’ll be negotiations ongoing with a few more (Alex Rufer and Callan Elliot should be the priorities). In all honesty it wouldn’t be the worst thing to give a new manager some recruitment flexibility to put their own stamp on the squad anyway.
But we’re not thinking about next season just yet. Leave that to the people whose job it is because before all that swings around there’s an opportunity that cannot be taken for granted or overshadowed. The Wellington Phoenix have a team capable of going deep into the finals and that’s not something we’ve been able to say very often. Let us savour the rest of this journey. Tonight we feast, for tomorrow... who bloody knows?
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