Phoenix ready for Roar´s return

Wellington Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert expects Brisbane Roar to be desperate in their A-league match on Wednesday.

Brisbane lead the table with 20 points but they have lost their last two matches as the pack starts to close on them.

“Brisbane will be pretty desperate after those two losses,” Herbert said, ahead of the clash in the New Zealand South Island city of Dunedin.

“It’s probably foreign territory to them, having to deal with that. They haven’t experienced consecutive losses for a fair while and they’re a good football team.”

“I think it does make them vulnerable. There is always going to be a seed of doubt in your mind somewhere if you’ve been travelling well and you have a couple of setbacks.”

Brisbane beat the Phoenix 5-1 in a pre-season game in Dunedin but Herbert said that had scant relevance to Wednesday’s clash.

“Since then we’ve drawn 1-all over there and, at that time, it was the first points they had dropped at home for a while,” he said.

“You don’t go 36-odd games unbeaten unless you’re a good team and they’ll be a handful on Wednesday.”

The Phoenix arrived in Dunedin after a 1-0 win over Perth Glory in Wellington courtesy of an 86th minute header from Ben Sigmund.

“It was an average game,” Herbert acknowledged.

“It was quite physical and we had to compete. We scored a good goal and we probably deserved to get the points. We’ve played better this year and got none.”

“We just need to keep going,” he said.

“We’ve played 10 games now and eight of those have been pretty decent. I guess our main improvement has to be to look after the ball better.”

“We’ve won two, drawn two and lost one of our last five games and we would like to continue that sort of consistency and push our way up the table.”

The Phoenix are seventh on the table and face three games in eight days with their next assignment away to the Melbourne Victory on Sunday.