Skipper Andrew Durante laments another lost season for Wellington Phoenix

  • 09/03/2018

Wellington Phoenix captain Andrew Durante has opened up on his side's struggles throughout the current A-League season.

After only four wins in 21 matches, the club sacked first-year coach Darije Kalezic and are already looking ahead to the 2018/19 campaign.

Interim coach Chris Greenacre has taken the reins for a third time until the club finds a replacement.

Speaking to media ahead of this weekend's clash against the Western Sydney Wanderers, Durante stressed just how frustrating the season has been for the New Zealand club.

"Whenever something goes wrong at the club it is disappointing, whenever a staff member or a coach moves on for whatever reason it is disappointing," he said.

"There are a group of players upstairs that are really disappointed in how the season has gone. Each season we start with so much optimism and hope that we can have a really successful season.

"If you had to sum it up and now next season we need to regroup, we need to start from scratch again which is unfortunate that we didn't have a season where we could build off.

"We have to start from scratch again and find a new coach and some new players which lots of guys off contract."

The Phoenix currently sit last on the A-League ladder and are ten points outside a playoffs spot with six games remaining.

Although the struggling franchise still has a mathematical chance of making the playoffs, Durante insist the goal is now to finish the season strong.

"We have a new coach in Greeny [Greenacre] till the end of the season of the season I'm assuming so now it's an opportunity for players who were not playing in the old regime or fell out of favour now have a chance to show what they can do.

"Results aside, we need to show a willingness that we want to fight. That is all the fans will really care about is to see a team that goes out there and fights and scraps and try to repay a bit of faith we have lost over the last few seasons."

Durante cited Kalezic's lack of knowledge about the A-League as the Swiss' biggest downfall, saying that football in Australasia is completely different to European football. 

"You can transfer players in and out at will in Europe but here you are stuck with a salary cap, you are stuck with international windows that we don't stop for.

"There are so many factors in the A-League that would not be relevant in Europe so there was a chance it could be an issue.

"I thought [former assistant coach] Rado [Vidosic] was a really good appointment to help bridge that, obviously that didn't work out, the two of them couldn't really work together.

"I felt so many little different issues affected results this year, but if I had to sum it up in one thing it was the lack of knowledge of the players and the A-League maybe hindered [Kalezic's ] performances."

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