Phoenix faces Victory in Melbourne hoping for first points

The Wellington Phoenix is having a very bad start of season: four games and all of them were lost. Despite showing some good signs of an entertaining football, the New Zealand side lost all their matches. Surely, the biggest problem for the Phoenix currently is their defense, being also worried about the amount of goal chances wasted.

This is the feeling the team and fans goes for their fifth match of the seaosn, away from home against Melbourne Victory. Last season, both sides faced each other in the playoffs in the same stadium of today’s match and the home side emerged victorious by a 3-1 margin ending Phoenix hopes in the postseason.

In their last match, the Nix suffered a 3-2 defeat also in Melbourne but for Melbourne City. A very controversial match when a penalty was awarded to the home side with the help of VAR that for many of those, it was a clear mistake. The match also marked the first goal of the season for the marksman Gary Hooper and the first A-League goal for the youngster Ben Waine. The bad news for Phoenix is that Hooper had a minor injury in the trainings during the week and will be missing this match – Waine starts on bench.

Despite the comeback of Liberato Cacace, the other starting full back Louis Fenton had a shoulder injury and will not be taking place in this match. For its place Ufuk Talay chose the All Whites member Tim Payne.

Victory will count with their most important player Ola Toivonen in the front side. The former Swedish international has plenty of quality to disturb the Wellington Phoenix defense. Phoenix will also need to care of the Albanian midfielder Migjen Basha, the former Denmark international Jacob Poulsen and the very quick winger from Burundi Elvis Kamsoba.

Without their most important player in the attack, Phoenix will really need to see a good game from the English forward David Ball, alongside the speedster Jaushua Sotirio. Callum McCowatt also returns to the first eleven and hopes to keep impressing in his first professional stint.

The match will be telecasted by SkySport and also can be watched at MyFootball YouTube Channel.