Soccer: Stable Phoenix ready to kick off season

Wellington Phoenix will hope for good times ahead after a turbulent off-season. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Wellington Phoenix have the potential to become one of the strongest clubs in the A-League but they start this season from a position of relative weakness after a turbulent recent history.

The demise of Terry Serepisos had been coming for some time, given his massive debts, and the tragedy of it was that it came only two weeks from the start of the season. Even though the club have experienced one of the longest off-seasons of any football competition in history, they aren't in the sort of shape many might have hoped.

It's why coach Ricki Herbert sounded like Gun N' Roses when he said, 'all we need is just a little patience'. The new owners all have considerable fortunes at their disposal and have big plans but to make these happen they firstly need to get the club's structure sorted. An office staff of three and skeleton coaching staff isn't the sort of basis to build a successful club.

The Phoenix line up with a weaker squad than they have had in recent seasons and have added little in terms of quality. They lost young tyro Marco Rojas to Melbourne and others like Jade North, Danny Vukovic, Dylan Macallister and Troy Hearfield have all departed.

In their place have come Tony Warner, Nikolas Tsattalios, James Downey, Brent Griffiths, Cameron Lindsay and Dani Sanchez. They had signed Lucas Pantelis, who was expected to provide plenty of spark and creativity down the wing, but he's out for the season with a knee injury.

Crucially, however, they have a nucleus of a squad that has made the playoffs in the past two seasons and their starting XI won't be too dissimilar to previous campaigns.

"You look around the league and the big-name signings like Harry Kewell, Brett Emerton and Fred and everyone seems to have recruited quite heavily," Phoenix captain Andrew Durante said. "But it's not necessarily the best thing, especially in a first season. Teams like Perth, Gold Coast and Adelaide have pretty much got rid of their whole starting lineup and brought in eight-10 new players and it's not always easy to gel.

"The main thing we have is stability. We have a core of 10 or 11 players who have been with the club for the last three or four years and we all know each other well. That's the core that has taken us to back-to-back finals appearances. It's in the hands of Ricki and the new owners if they bring in a big-name signing down the track, which would be great, but I think we are in a good enough place to be there or thereabouts with the squad we have at the moment."

That is hugely reliant on key players remaining injury-free. Paul Ifill is critical in this respect after he missed a large chunk of last season and they can ill-afford to lose the likes of Durante, Ben Sigmund, Leo Bertos, Tony Lochhead, Tim Brown, Nick Ward and Chris Greenacre because there is little in terms of depth at the club.

New import Sanchez is the unknown quantity. He's seen as technically very good and has a good attitude - he paid his own way to remain in Wellington on trial after picking up an injury soon after arriving - but he's unproven in this league and the Phoenix have continually struggled to find a playmaker.

They will also need to maintain their incredible home record that has seen them undefeated in 27 of their last 29 games at the Cake Tin. This is doubly so when you consider their away record that has, on average, delivered just eight points a season.

English-born American Alex Smith is likely to win a short-term contract with the Phoenix to replace injured striker Mirjan Pavlovic (broken arm) but he's perhaps not the major signing fans might have hoped for.

"Everyone wants to be a finals team but we have to be a little realistic," Herbert said. "People need to see the big picture and see where the club needs to go. It has been a challenging off-season and the most important thing is the club is in the league and is still strong. Now it's time for us to roll up our sleeves and get going."