Wellington Phoenix may have suffered their fifth straight defeat this season, but it was their best performance out of their opening five games.
Three of the five Phoenix Women defeats have been by a three goal margin, the other two including this recent match finished 1-0 to the opposition.
Head coach Natalie Lawrence was proud of her side’s efforts against Adelaide United.
“You can see from the girls it was a difference from last week, last week we knew we didn’t play well,” she said.
Last week, Wellington suffered an embarrassing 3-0 loss to Canberra United away in a game that was dominated by the hosts. The Nix were outplayed, outdominated and hardly had the ball.
So what was the difference in the Adelaide game?
The Phoenix played a lot better in tricky conditions. Even though it wasn’t a complete performance, they threatened to attack a lot more rather than build up, they created a load of chances and their general play wasn’t too bad.
While they lost 1-0 thanks to an own goal, it was an unlucky way for Wellington to go down. You could argue that it should have been more with the visitors blowing a heap of chances, but the Nix looked stronger defensively and had their chances on goal as well.
The Phoenix may have made a few slip ups here and there, but that’s all part of the game. Lawrence believes her side were completely different this time out.
“We competed, we had more shots on target than [Adelaide United] did and we had the same amount of final third entries,” she said.
If it wasn’t for Adelaide keeper Annalee Grove and her impressive saves in goal, the Nix could have gone on to win the game.
Wellington were able to compete with Adelaide and keep themselves in the game the whole 90 minutes.
Adelaide United are currently joint top of the A-League Women’s ladder with Western United. For the Phoenix to put on a hard game for them shows that they can turn around their winless season so far. These two teams will meet post-Christmas on Tuesday in Adelaide for what should be another entertaining match.
Featured Image Credit: Photomac
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