Saturday’s A-League 2016 Round 5 match is between Wellington Phoenix and Newcastle Jets. The opening kick off is set to commence at 17:30 local time with the game to be played at Westpac Stadium. The home team Wellington Phoenix are the favourites for the match. View our preview and teams for the game between Wellington Phoenix and Newcastle Jets.
Wellington’s scoring woes continue despite having some very capable players in the attacking third. They just haven’t been able to score with any regularity but I feel that may change this week.
The Nix were very unlucky against Sydney FC in their last home match and despite the heavy loss away to Victory, they will make sure home advantage counts this time round.
To do that, they need all their big guns to hit form.
With Kosta Barbarouses, Gui Finkler, Roy Krishna, Roly Bonevacia (pictured above) and Michael McGlinchey, Phoenix have plenty of goals in them so the Jets could be in for a tough encounter.
Newcastle’s unbeaten start to the season ended at the hands of first-placed Sydney FC.
While there have been some positives signs for the Jets so far, they were comfortably beaten by FC and also tested by the Wanderers a week earlier.
To their credit, they showed a lot of character to come back from 2-0 down against the Wanderers and that character will need to be on show to overcome Wellington this week.
KEY BATTLE: Nigel Boogaard v Roy Krishna
Krishna scored his first goal of the season against Victory and will be hungry for more.
Boogaard (pictured above) will be keen for the Jets to keep a clean sheet after conceding four goals in their last two games.
The verdict
Despite a poor start to the season, Wellington will get their first points in this one.
Unibet Odds: Wellington 2.02 Draw 3.75 Newcastle 3.45
Tip: Wellington Phoenix
Teams:
Wellington Phoenix squad: 1.Glen MOSS (gk), 2.Jacob TRATT, 4.Roly BONEVACIA, 5.Ryan LOWRY, 7.Gui FINKLER, 9.Kosta BARBAROUSES, 10.Michael MCGLINCHEY, 11.Hamish WATSON, 13.Marco ROSSI, 14.Alex RUFER, 16.Louis FENTON, 17.Vince LIA, 18.Ben LITFIN, 19.Tom DOYLE, 20.Lewis ITALIANO (gk), 21 Roy KRISHNA, 22.Andrew DURANTE (c), 23.Matthew RIDENTON.
Newcastle Jets squad: 3.Jason HOFFMAN, 4.Nigel BOOGAARD (c), 6.Steven UGARKOVIC, 7.Andrew HOOLE, 8.Mateo POLJAK, 9.Aleksandr KOKKO, 10.Wayne BROWN, 11.Labinot HALITI, 13.Ivan VUJICA, 15.Andrew NABBOUT, 16.Nicholas COWBURN, 19.Morten NORDSTRAND, 20.Jack DUNCAN (gk), 23.Devante CLUT, 27.Caio DE GODOY, 28.Johnny KOUTROUMBIS, 40.Noah JAMES (gk).
