Ricki Herbert reckons goalkeeper Mark Paston is a 50-50 chance to play in the Wellington Phoenix’s rearranged Hyundai A-League match against the Newcastle Jets on Wednesday night.
Paston limped off seven minutes into the Phoenix’s disappointing 3-1 loss to Sydney at the weekend with a hip problem after being clattered by team-mate Ben Sigmund as both went for the ball.
But Herbert said the All Whites custodian had not been ruled out of the clash at Westpac Stadium where the Phoenix will be looking to extend its 11-game unbeaten run at home.
“Mark will be tested tomorrow. There’s a possibility now (of him playing). I think it’s 50-50. We’ll wait and see,” said the coach.
“He needs to play and I’m not going to rest him for any other reason.”
“He needs to be in goal if he’s right. If we can get him there we will.”
The Phoenix face a busy few days with a fixture against Perth Glory on Sunday coming hot on the heels of Wednesday night’s match with the Jets.
Herbert conceded that with three games in seven days fatigue was a concern but that he would not be making wholesale changes to his starting line-up.
“At the moment we are going with the same squad but it might not be the same team,” he said.
“There are just one or two who could probably do with a little bit of freshening up but we’ll see.”
“We’ve done so well for seven weeks and I’m not going to radically change it.”
“We do have to play on Sunday and that’s the other consideration really which is a bit different to normal.”
Leo Bertos, who has started every game for the Phoenix and had a huge workload in the All Whites’ World Cup play-off match in Bahrain last month, was certainly one who looked jaded against Sydney.
Herbert said some thought had been given to starting last weekend’s goal scorer Costa Barbarouses and giving Bertos a spell on the bench.
“That’s a possibility and we’d probably go with Costa up front with Greenie (Chris Greenacre) and keep Paul (Ifill) wide because he’s causing a lot of problems out there when he gets into those areas,” Herbert added.
Sigmund however, believes the quick turnaround could actually be a blessing after the poor performance at the Sydney Football Stadium.
“We were all saying after the game it was good that we have a midweek game to get things right,” said the defender.
“We were poor everywhere (against Sydney). Us at the back were terrible, the midfield weren’t quite there and the strikers didn’t hold it up for us.”
“We’ve all put our hands up and we’ve all got to get better. We just have to take it on the chin and pick ourselves up for Wednesday.”
