Source: Radio New Zealand
Chris Greenacre. www.photosport.nz
Coach Chris Greenacre admits his team were “nowhere near the pace” after crashing to a 4-0 loss to Macarthur FC in their final game of a difficult A-League season.
The Phoenix trailed 3-0 at halftime in a one-sided contest in Sydney and went on to suffer their biggest defeat since Greenacre took over from Giancarlo Italiano two months ago.
The result means the Phoenix eighth on the standings and they could drop to ninth once the final round of regular season matches is completed.
Macarthur leapfrogged the Kiwi side to seventh. Both teams already knew they were out of play-off contention going into the match.
A lack of motivation was no excuse for a riled Greenacre.
“It is more difficult for players to get up for a game when there’s nothing but at the end of the day you’re a professional athlete and that shouldn’t matter,” Greenacre told journalists.
“Ultimately this is your job so there should be no taking your foot of the gas in my opinion, and we did that.
“Really disappointed with the way that we conducted ourselves in the first half, we were nowhere near the pace.
“We had a few words at halftime and I thought in the second half we took the game to Macarthur… and in transition we caused them a few problems without having that final end product.
“It’s the first time I’ve probably questioned our group. They’ve been awesome for a number of weeks now and that was probably our blip and unfortunately we don’t have the opportunity to fix that.”
The first half was one to forget for the Phoenix.
Macarthur took the lead little after five minutes into the game as a result of a mix up at the back which saw a long-range effort from Matthew Jurman deflect off Bill Tuiloma and into the back of the net.
The Bulls doubled their advantage midway through the half when a right wing cross fell favourably to the feet of midfielder Dean Bosnjak on the edge of the six yard box and he slotted home.
Ifeanyi Eze had Wellington’s first goalscoring opportunity in the 25th minute when he got on the end of a defence-splitting through ball, but he saw his effort deflect narrowly wide of the left post.
Luke Brattan made it 3-0 to Macarthur nine minutes later, picking out the top left corner of the Phoenix goal with a quality finish after being given space and time outside the penalty area.
Greenacre made a double change at halftime, bringing on Ramy Najjarine and Luke Brooke-Smith in place of Sander Kartum and Fin Roa Conchie respectively.
The substitutes, particularly Brooke-Smith, had an impact with the Phoenix having a great share of possession and looking more dangerous with the ball.
Brooke-Smith was denied from close range by Robinson midway through the second half after Corban Piper nodded a Najjarine cross back across goal.
Macarthur added a fourth courtesy of a big deflection which looped over Josh Oluwayemi and into the back of the net.
Substitute Sarpreet Singh, in his first appearance since being injured 10 weeks ago, came closest to getting the visitors on the scoresheet in the final minute of normal time when he rattled the crossbar from a free kick.
The Wellington Phoenix will be back on the training pitch next week as they prepare players such as Singh for the chance of playing at the FIFA World Cup.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
