Wellington Phoenix are on the hunt for another goalkeeper following an injury to reserve shot-stopper Reece Crowther.
The 21-year-old suffered a cracked rib in a collision with Dylan Macallister in training last week and has been ruled out for between eight to 10 weeks.
Assistant coach Jonathan Gould sat on the bench as Mark Paston’s back up in the 3-3 draw with Gold Coast United last Friday night and will fill that role again against Central Coast Mariners as the Wellington club continue their search.
“Reece could be out a while especially with an injury like that,” said coach Ricki Herbert.
“So I think I’d probably prefer a little bit longer-term [signing].”
“We haven’t got anybody yet, unfortunately. It’s a difficult time to find a goalkeeper and we want the right one too.”
“I don’t want to rush it. I think it would have to be someone abroad … and it’s just a matter of making sure we bring what we need to the club.”
Former Central Coast Mariners keeper Danny Vukovic has recently been dumped by his Turkish club Konyaspor but Herbert said they had made no approach to the 25-year-old.
Gould, who played more than 150 games in goal for Celtic, had plenty of sympathy for Crowther who had just returned from a successful off-season stint with Finnish club EIF Ekenas FC.
“I know he enjoyed it and he came back and was pretty pleased with the progress he had made,” said the 42-year-old Englishman.
“To get injured like that two days before the start of the season is a set-back for him personally.”
Crowther’s injury also left Gould with little time to prepare for his role on the bench last week.
“When you only get two days it’s quite difficult. This week leading into the Central Coast game it gives me five or six days to sharpen myself and make sure at the same time Mark is ready for the game because he is the most important one,” Gould said.
The competitive juices are still flowing strongly in the Phoenix assistant coach as he clearly enjoyed it when he got the better of his players during free-kick drills at training.
“I don’t think the competitive edge ever leaves you if you’ve played professional sport and that’s certainly the case for me,” he said with a grin. “I want to win every game I play in and it’s no different in training.”
“It’s nice to be able to keep yourself in some kind of reasonable physical condition at the age of 42.”
