Confidence will be sky-high in the Wellington Phoenix camp after their demolition of the Mariners last weekend, but they are set for a tougher test against Western Sydney Wanderers on Sunday.
The Phoenix swatted aside any concerns of potential pressure from the finals-chasing Jets to put eight goals past Central Coast, with Roy Krishna and Sarpreet Singh doing most of the damage.
The in-form Krishna’s double took his season tally to 14 goals, putting him joint-top in the Golden Boot standings with Sydney FC’s Adam Le Fondre.
The win took Mark Rudan’s side above Melbourne City and Adelaide United into the all-important top four.
While they have taken their last couple of home games away from Westpac Stadium, they return to the ‘Cake Tin’ for this one.
And Wellington has won four of their last five Hyundai A-League games at Westpac, losing only to Sydney FC in that time.
But the Wanderers did prevail in New Zealand earlier this season (back in Round 3) and they return to the same venue off the back of their best run of form all campaign.
Markus Babbel’s troops are undefeated in their last four games, including a 4-1 mauling of Brisbane Roar last Friday night.
This excellent run of results has kept Western Sydney’s faint finals hopes alive and for them the mission is deceptively simple: they have to keep winning to close the gap on the top six.
With all that in mind, this should be a cracking contest to start a ‘Super Sunday’ in the Hyundai A-League.
