Phoenix hope for many happy returns

There are not too many players left at Wellington Phoenix to retell the tale of last season’s record rout of Central Coast Mariners.

Of the 11 who started the 8-2 thumping, only Liberato Cacace and Louis Fenton remain at the club and Fenton is currently sidelined with a season-ending injury.

Captain Steven Taylor sat out the game with an injury of his own but watched with amazement from the comfort of his living room as his Phoenix team-mates relentlessly peppered the Mariners goal.

‘‘I was relaxing back home but it was great seeing the boys put on that display,’’ Taylor said.

‘‘It started off a bit sloppy but as the game got on we performed really well and got some cracking goals.’’

Despite their high player turnover, the Phoenix will be hoping for a similar scoreline when they return to Gosford to play the last-placed Mariners tomorrow – exactly one year on from their record win.

‘‘Hopefully we can get the 8 but not the 2,’’ coach Ufuk Talay said. ‘‘But that was a long time ago. It’s a new squad and they’ve got a new coach as well.’’

Due to the congested nature of the A-League ladder – seven points separate teams second through sixth – goal differential could end up deciding who hosts finals matches.

While the Phoenix continue to stress their main objective is to finish inside the top six, they are in a position where hosting a playoff at Sky Stadium is a real possibility.

They have the same points as Perth Glory (30) but an inferior goal differential (nine). A big win over the Mariners, who have lost their past seven games and have collected just three points from a possible 30 over the past 10 games, could see the Phoenix claw some of that back.

However, as good as the Phoenix have been this season, they have struggled to put teams away. Three of their nine victories have come via two-goal margins, while the other six were won by just one.

‘‘The most important thing is the three points first and foremost,’’ Talay said. ‘‘We’d like to win the game and you always want to win games by big scores and we had the opportunity the week before last against Western United where if we had scored an early goal it could have been three or four in the first half.

‘‘But I’m happy to win 1-0 as long as we get the three points.’’

Despite the Mariners’ terrible run of results, Taylor said the Phoenix would have to be on guard to beat an underperforming team who will be desperate to avoid another humiliation after losing 6-2 to Western United last week.

The Phoenix have won their past two games but lost some of that momentum when last week’s game against Sydney FC was postponed until later in the month.

‘‘You can’t be too confident going in there thinking it’s going to be an easy game,’’ he said.

‘‘They’re coming off the back of a heavy defeat so they’ll be hurt and you don’t know how it’s going to turn out.

‘‘It could be a good thing, it could be a bad thing. But we’ve just got to play our normal game and worry about ourselves.’’