An important away clash looms for the Wellington Phoenix in the A-League against a stuttering Melbourne Victory side.
The Phoenix having only won three times in 38 visits to AAMI Park does not faze head coach Giancarlo Italiano, who is maintaining an upbeat mentality.
“I don’t treat it any differently, the process is the same every week,” he told media on Thursday. “We do the same thing.
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“I don’t think anyone ever discusses that we haven’t won there. It’s going to happen at some stage. We’re hoping it’s this game, we go into every game planning to win.
“I don’t know if it’s the dimension of the pitch, I don’t know if they poison our water when we go there, I don’t know what it is, but it’s going to be a big game.
“Victory are in a bit of a weird holding pattern as well, with a new coach. The pressure is on. They lost last week, so it’s going to be a tough game.”
Despite an uptick in recent performances, the Phoenix have struggled to turn draws into wins as they hunt for a playoff spot.
However, Italiano is still focused on taking the season game by game.
“Both me personally and the coaching staff are not looking too far ahead.
“We’re not talking about top six, or even the next game in Auckland, we’re just focused on the Victory game and what we can get out of it.
“What we’ve been really happy with is with the amount of personnel change, and all the events that have happened this season, if you zoom out we’ve lost two of the last seven games.
“We aren’t getting a lot of wins at the moment, but with the younger players who have been playing and the new imports who are still finding their feet, we’re still very competitive in all our games."
Although new visa signing Francisco Geraldes will not be ready to feature until at least next round’s New Zealand derby, Italiano is edging closer to a full-strength squad after injuries have rocked the team in recent weeks.
“Once the other senior players start filtering back in, and we can really influence a game off the bench, because that’s a very crucial part of any game, then we can start projecting.
“At the moment, we’re still at that stage where we’re trying to find our feet. Once we get everyone back, seeing how many games there are left, then we can maybe calculate where our expectation is.
“I hate to harp on about last year, but one thing we spoke about was controlling what we can control, focusing game by game, and I think that works once we stop talking about what was done before or what’s going to happen in the future.
“Focusing on now is the most important thing.”
One of those returning players is club captain Alex Rufer, who is in line to feature for the first time since December after suffering glandular fever.
“He’ll be in the ins. He’s progressed nicely, and the intention is that he travels.
“He’ll have some sort of part in tomorrow’s game. If he’s going to travel, he’s going to be part of the game.
“He’s way ahead of where he should be, which is good. He’s had two good weeks of training.”
Right back Tim Payne is also expected to play a larger part in the game after he made his own comeback from the bench against Brisbane Roar last week.
“Again, it’s not the intent in the game that I’m worried about, it’s more the training and the loads getting into his legs.
“I’m hoping for a bigger contribution from him for this game, and it’s really important that as a group we can rely on his experience.
“It’ll be good to have him back as well, and he can give us some leadership on the park.”
And Italiano will take a good result for the Nix however it comes.
“Football’s a funny thing. We could go there and play beautiful football for 89 minutes and cop one terrible goal.
“Or, we could have no shots and it’s the other way around. In this line of work, results are everything. I’ll take the three points however I can.
“I know that if we give our honest effort, like we have the last couple of months, it’s going to be very hard for them to beat us.
“That gives me a lot of hope that we can get a positive result.”
The round 19 A-League match between the Wellington Phoenix and Melbourne Victory is scheduled to kick-off at AAMI Park in Melbourne at 9:35pm (7:35pm AEDT) Friday