Wellington Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert has voiced his disappointment at his side’s poor attacking form after the 1-0 loss to Newcastle at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Saturday night.
The Phoenix rarely troubled the Jets defence in the match that saw them fall to their fifth loss out of six matches away from home this season and slip to eighth place on the Hyundai A-League ladder.
“We didn’t look like scoring tonight. Some of those decisions in that front third haven’t been like they should be,” Herbert said after the match.
“We just looked like side that can’t win at the moment which is frustrating. I thought our passing was quite poor tonight and our decision making was poor.”
“One of our players slips over and we cop a goal and that is kind of it at the moment.”
Herbert said he was baffled as to how to turn around the form slump in front of goals.
“If we knew that we would have done it weeks ago,” he said. “At the end of the day you just have to keep on battling on.
“We’ve just got to keep working hard. But at the end of the day it is not going to get any easier. Games are going to keep coming our way so maybe a re-focus.”
“It was important for us tonight and to come away with nothing is disappointing.”
Phoenix skipper Andrew Durante said he was disappointed that his side wasn’t able to take advantage of the fact that the Jets went into the match with two of their key players in Ljubo Milicevic and Ruben Zadkovich.
“I have watched them in the last few weeks and they have been playing some good football. But they we without Ljubo and Ruben and I thought that was a good chance for us to really nail them,” he said.
“But we didn’t take advantage of it – the guys who stepped in for them did well but from a playing point of view I didn’t think it was a real exciting game, I didn’t think there were loads of chances, but they had their chances and they were clinical and they took it and we go away without any points.”
Durante echoed his coach’s comments but indicated that he believed his side had the ability to play themselves back into form.
“Confidence is low at the moment,” Durante said. “We are trying to get ourselves out of this little hole we have got ourselves in.”
“Our decision making, poor passes and not creating chances. I mean if we are not creating chances we are not going to win games. Teams come up the other end and put one away and that is it – game over.”
“But we have to keep working hard. It is the old cliché – train hard but that is all we can do. I am sure it will turn around but we just have to start with believing we can win again.”
“There are a lot of teams in our situation in this league at the moment. There is the top three or fours that are doing well and the rest are losing one, winning one and without any rhythm and we seem to be in that category.”
“We need to get some consistency back. We can take some heart from other teams who are struggling like us and hopefully we can go on a role and start climbing the ladder.”
