First-class performance by Marinovic give Phoenix tight win over Jets

Wellington Phoenix is back to the winning ways after they beat at home Newcastle Jets; a very hard match for the New Zealanders as the visitors created the most opportunities of goals, but were stopped by Marinovic in a splendid night.

Jets had the best opportunities in the first half and should have scored in certain moments. The first 45 minutes were completely controled by the visitors. Matthew Millar created the best opportunity of the first half, as he broke into a counter-attack and found Jason Hoffman free inside the box, but the winger shot above the bar of Marinovic, missing a golden opportunity. Despite the dominace of the bottom ranked team in the ladder against Phoenix in the first half, the match went in a 0-0 draw at the break.

The starting of the second half had the same story: Newcastle upfront controlling the game, Phoenix could not keeping possession of the ball and wasting it in the final third. The things were not good for Phoenix, so the coach Ufuk Talay decided to sack Callum McCowatt to introduce the speedster Jaushua Sotirio.

The substitution could not have worked faster: Gary Hooper found the playmaker Dávila in the midfielder, he speeds the play and puts a fantastic through ball to Sotirio, that with his first touch in the ball of the game puts the Nix upfront with a clinical finish.

Things seemed to be lucky in favour of Phoenix – not a good day for the team, Jets were dominant. The tactics chosen by the visitors really seemed to work, not allowing much space for the runs of Liberato Cacace and for the creativity of Ulises Dávila in the midfield. The 1-0 could change the whole story of the game, if It was not for Abdiel Arroyo: the striker found the nets in the 66th after a mistake of Phoenix defense – the first attempt Marinovic could hold, what seemed to be controlled ball was wasted after David Ball was tackled and after the shot of Petratos was deflected, the ball was offered for the Panamanian to find the low corner of Marinovic, to equalize the match.

The drama was back to Sky Stadium, but only for three minutes: Alex Rufer made his first game after a knee injury – making a surprise enter in the game after Talay announced the play was still out during the week – and made also a direct impact. After a cross, Rufer takes the rebound and fires to the goal, the ball is deflect and Ulises Dávila just need to find the corner of Lewis Italiano to put Phoenix ahead. This was the 10th goal of the season for Dávila.

After the second goal at the 69th minute of play, another character arised in the game: Stefan Marinovic. The All-Whites goalkeeper made several stops to keep his team upfront in the scoreboard – denying a free header of Nigel Boogard and a long-range shot of Angus Thurgate.

Marinovic made a total of four saves during the match, the most impressive of them all came in the final minute of the game, when after a cross the ball offered itself to Jets attacker inside the 6-yard box and Marinovic could have a powerful shot with his leg, saving all points for the home side.

The goalkeeper was much celebrated after the final whistle by his teammates – they know his game was a first-class and Marinovic the responsible to keep all three points from this clash in Wellington.

Phoenix stands in the 4th position in the Australian Hyundai A-League ladder with 24 points after this 2-1 win over Newcastle Jets. The club has the same number of points of th 3rd placed Perth Glory, but the current premiers have a better goal difference and still two matches to be played in comparison with Phoenix.

Phoenix heads now to a bye-week and will just return to the pitch in the next 7th February, when they travel to Perth for the Long Distance Derby.