Wellington Phoenix FC vs Brisbane Roar FC. Sunday 31 March, 1pm kick off.
Wellington Phoenix head coach Giancarlo Italiano is bullish about the depth of his squad heading into the deciding five weeks of the Isuzu UTE A-League round-robin.
The Phoenix will be without regular right back Tim Payne and central defender Isaac Hughes for their Easter Sunday match against Brisbane Roar at Sky Stadium, after both suffered hamstring injuries before the international break.
And Italiano is preparing for the possibility talismanic striker Oskar Zawada won’t be able to play again this season because of a growth on his thigh.
But he isn’t concerned the Phoenix are going to run out of gas in their premiership push.
“I’ll be concerned when we don’t have 11 players that we can put on the park,” Italiano told media before training on Thursday. “As long as we have 11 players and boys that come off the bench that want to do a job for us, I’m not concerned.
“We’ve gone through this all season. At the beginning of the season everyone was talking about a lack of depth, and I think the boys have answered that quite well.
“We’ve had injuries all season [and] we’ve had to makeshift a lot of players into different positions and be very flexible in the way we think about our formations and the way we play. This is no different to any other challenge that we’ve had.
