Remixed Wellington Phoenix deliver again in win over Western Sydney Wanderers

If there were any doubts that Wellington Phoenix are going to be a force in this season then they were cast aside last night.

Cillian Sheridan and Louis Fenton of the Phoenix embrace Roy Krishna of the Phoenix as he celebrates scoring a goal against the Wanderers last night. Picture: Getty Images

If there were any doubts that Wellington Phoenix are going to be a force in this season’s A-League then they were cast aside following last night’s 3-2 win over Western Sydney at ANZ Stadium.

A Roy Krishna second half double, including an 89th minute winner, and Louis Fenton’s first-half goal gave the Kiwis their fourth win in their past six games and stretched their unbeaten run to a club equalling record of seven.

It also put Mark Rudan’s men on 19 points and pushed them above Adelaide United into fifth spot.

Phoenix have been the revelation of the A-League this season while Rudan has done a tremendous job in turning the one time easy beats of the league into a well drilled, well organised outfit that has to be shown plenty of respect.

The win for the Kiwis was doubly important as they had not beaten the Wanderers in their previous eight encounters, while it extends their points break over their rivals to 10.

Typically, Rudan refuses to get ahead of himself and knows there is still a long way to go this season.

“We are now starting to see a bit of the results of the hard work we put in during pre-season, but we are not prepared to sit on that,” Rudan said.

“To be honest, I am not worried or focused on records. We didn’t play well tonight. We didn’t hold on to the ball as well as we could have. We pride ourselves on defending set pieces but they scored two from set pieces so I am not happy with that

“But we showed a lot of grit to come back. We didn’t drop our heads when they equalised. They would have done that earlier in the season, but not now. It’s a great sign.”

This will be a difficult result for the home side to take.

Once again they played well, but some poor defensive lapses cost them in the end.

The Wanderers tried hard and were not helped by injuries to key playmaker Alex Baumjohann and striker Oriol Riera. Baumjohann had to be replaced in the fifth minute after suffering a hamstring injury while Riera injured his groin late in the first half.

For Wanderers coach Markus Babbel, it was broken record time.

“You were there the last (press) conference and the one before that and the one before that … this is very hard, very hard, very hard,” Babbel said. “Again the players worked very hard and tried everything. Created chances and couldn’t score.”

While the missed chances hurt, it was the Wanderers defence that really let them down last night. “If you see our goals what we concede, then it is no big surprise that you come away with nothing,” he added.

The two sides were locked 1-1 at halftime, but it was a frantic second half that saw Phoenix take the lead through Krishna in the 82nd minute before Keanu Baccus equalised just two minutes later.

But Phoenix had a sting in the tail with Krishna bobbing up with a header in the dying minutes to seal a wonderful win.

Despite losing Baumjohann, the Wanderers looked quite solid for much of the first half, moving the ball confidently and trying to open up the Phoenix down the flanks, but especially down the right side where Tate Russell and Bruce Kamau were looking dangerous.

There was controversy on 14 minutes when referee Jonathan Barreiro awarded Western Sydney a penalty after it appeared that Fenton had brought down Kamau in the area.

But, after a number of replays that took almost three minutes, Barreiro overturned his decision after prompted by the VAR to look at it again.

There was a good rhythm to this game with both sides looking to attack.