Soccer: Lochhead to notch up 50 games for Phoenix

It's a bit like winning the lottery. Someone's number eventually had to come up.

Tony Lochhead will reach a milestone today as the first player to notch up 50 games for the Wellington Phoenix.

It's come in quick time, given the team will be playing just their 53rd match in their short history. Lochhead hasn't missed a game because of injury - or not that he can remember - although he was sidelined once through suspension and twice because of international duty.

The 27-year-old left-back is clearly an automatic choice. He's started all 49 of his games to date and played 4371 minutes of a possible 4410 in two-and-a-half seasons.

"It's pretty special to be the first one to get there and being there from the beginning is pretty cool," he says in his easygoing way.

Laid back is probably the best way to describe the way he plays, too. Lochhead never looks under pressure even if he's not playing well, and that has been too often for his liking.

He was one of Wellington's best and most consistent players in their first season, cruising up and down the left touchline and whipping in crosses. But his game fell away in the second season and it's only now starting to approach the level achieved in the first season.

Strangely, Lochhead pinpoints a Premiership trial with Middlesbrough before the start of last season as the catalyst of his lapse.

"My form dipped after that," he says. "I lost confidence. I stopped playing the way I was in the first season, getting up and down the line and getting involved in the attack. I just came back and I wasn't as confident as I was previously.

"I gave it a good shot but it didn't work out. I came back and maybe the big high of going over there ... I don't know. I wasn't the same person and didn't have as much confidence.

"[Now] I feel I have got better at the things I needed to work on. I've been trying to get further forward and get back to the formula I had in the first season."

The Phoenix, though, would like to change their formula of recent times. They go into today's match against Shane Smeltz's Gold Coast on the back of an A-League record of six-straight draws which has left them trailing in ninth, five points off the top six.

They need some wins soon or they could be left behind. They are clearly a difficult side to beat - their two defeats is the least in the A-League - but have won only one of their 10 games all season.

"I wish I knew," Lochhead says when asked how to turn draws into wins. "Maybe it's mental. Maybe we need to be switched on more. Maybe we relax.

"It's not done [purposely] but subconsciously we switch off and stop playing when we get up 1-0. Teams come at us and we try to soak up the pressure, which is the wrong thing to do. If you keep dropping deep [on defence], it's only a matter of time before they score.

"Last weekend was a prime example. I thought we were all right in the first half. We scored and were up 1-0 but in the second we were a completely different side and probably should have conceded two or three goals [in the 1-1 draw with North Queensland]."

They had the mitigating factor of six players, and Herbert, being away on international duty the previous weekend. Lochhead admits it's hard not thinking about the All Whites' massive game against Bahrain in Wellington on November 14.

"For sure, you think the what ifs," he says. "You're always thinking about it. It's a big opportunity for us. It would be pretty amazing if we can qualify, especially being at home."

Crunching numbers
* Tony Lochhead: 49 games
* Michael Ferrante: 43 games
* Daniel: 43 games
* Shane Smeltz: 39 games
* Karl Dodd: 36 games
* Tim Brown: 35 games