Wellington Phoenix midfielder Tim Brown has warned Perth Glory they will be given little chance to shake off any travel weariness in Sunday’s crucial clash at Westpac Stadium.
Wellington Phoenix midfielder Tim Brown has warned Perth Glory they will be given little chance to shake off any travel weariness in Sunday’s crucial clash at Westpac Stadium.
Perth have made the arduous trip from the Australian west coast to the New Zealand capital after going down 2-1 to Central Coast Mariners at nib Stadium on Wednesday night.
But given the hours the Phoenix spend travelling to away matches during the season and with so much riding on Sunday’s match, Brown said they would be looking to hit the Glory hard and hit them early.
“I think when teams come here we tend to jump on them pretty early because we know what’s it’s like (with all the travel). It’s horrible,” the New Zealand international said.
“The first 15-20 minutes of every game we’ve played at home this year we’ve really ripped into teams and hopefully we can take it to Perth again on Sunday.”
The match is the first of three in eight days for the Phoenix, who fly to the Gold Coast to play Brisbane Roar in their rescheduled match on Wednesday before returning home to play the Newcastle Jets next Sunday.
“You have those patches and you just grind through them,” said Brown of the tightly-packed matches. “It’s not much fun, particularly when you throw in the travel component in the middle of the week. That is very, very hard.”
“We just need to beat Perth. Then after that we’ll focus on Brisbane and take it one step at a time.”
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The Glory have made a handful of changes to squad which lost to Wellington. Veteran defender Andy Todd has been released from his contract, while Jamie Harnwell and Adriano Pellegrino are both suspended.
Leading goal scorer Robbie Fowler has also failed to make the trip to Wellington because of a hamstring injury while Jacob Burns has also remained in to Perth to be with his wife who expecting their third child.
Interim head coach Ian Ferguson has brought Branko Jelic and Brent Griffiths back into an extended squad that also includes youth players Cameron Edwards and Storm Roux as well as Naum Sekulovski who returns from injury.
Leo Bertos (groin) is the only concern for Wellington coach Ricki Herbert and he has included Argentinean attacking midfielder Oscar Roberto Cornejo as cover.
