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Phoenix men aim to hit the ground running as elusive title hunt starts

Despite a tough build-up, the Phoenix have set themselves a target of playing finals football. By Phillip Rollo.

Wellington Phoenix have set themselves a target of playing finals football this A-League season, despite losing key personnel and experiencing a disjointed pre-season due to the pandemic.

Little is expected of the Phoenix after farewelling big names Ulises Davila, Steven Taylor, Tomer Hemed and Cam Devlin, and being forced to spend the start of the new campaign based away from New Zealand.

But coach Ufuk Talay believes a top-six finish is still a realistic goal in his third year in charge of the Phoenix men’s team, and backed his ‘‘young and hungry’’ squad to step up in the absence of key figures Davila and Taylor.

‘‘I hate that underdog tag. We play a certain brand of football and you’ve seen that in the last two seasons, and we always see ourselves as favourites no matter who we play — regardless of the names on paper,’’ Talay said.

‘‘This year is a great opportunity to blood some of these youngsters and look towards the future, and it gives us some longevity with the players that we have.

‘‘We have belief in what we do and how we do things. Pre-season results are irrelevant but the three games we played against A-League teams has given us a lot of confidence heading into the first game.’’

The Phoenix open the A-League Men season against Davila’s new club Macarthur at McDonald Jones Stadium in Newcastle tonight (8.45pm kickoff).

The fixture was moved because the playing surface at Campbelltown Stadium was deemed unfit for play.

‘‘It doesn’t look good at all considering no-one has been playing on it for nine months.’’

Macarthur pulled off a major coup by prising Mexican star Davila away from the Phoenix after winning the best player Johnny Warren Medal, but their pre-season form has been awful, and they could be ripe for the picking.

Coach Ante Milicic’s side have lost all four of their warm-up matches against other A-League opposition, while conceding three or more goals in the process. Their worst result was a 6-3 loss to Newcastle Jets.

‘‘They have some good names on paper, but at the end of the day paper doesn’t move,’’ Talay said.

After picking up just five points from their first eight games last season and ending up one point short of the top six, Talay said it was important the Phoenix made a strong start and got points on the board early.

‘‘Obviously the more points we can pick up early doors helps us in the back-end of the season, especially once there’s a bit more consistency and players are getting more game time.

‘‘It’s very important to have as many points as we can before the January transfer window opens and we can bring some players in.’’

Talay is expecting big things from talented Australian winger

Reno Piscopo after losing his attacking talisman Davila, while prolific English striker Gary Hooper is back from a stint in India and will shoulder most of the goal-scoring load in the wake of Hemed’s move to Western Sydney Wanderers.

‘‘Goals win you games and ‘Hoops’ has done that wherever he’s played.

‘‘The main thing for us is to keep Hoops fit and available for games, and I’m sure he will go out there and do his job.’’

The Phoenix will be without injured fullbacks Sam Sutton and Louis Fenton for the opening three rounds, but in-form duo James McGarry and Callan Elliot probably would have started against Macarthur anyway.

Clayton Lewis sat out the final warm-up match against Sydney FC after experiencing tightness in his calf muscle, but he is available and should partner newlyappointed captain Alex Rufer in central midfield.

‘‘He trained fully this week but was on modified training last week.

‘‘He just felt his calf a little bit ... we thought we don’t need to risk him in a friendly game.’’

The Phoenix beat Macarthur 3-0 in their final game last season to stretch their unbeaten run to 11 games.

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2021-11-21T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-21T08:00:00.0000000Z

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