Soccer: Time another enemy for Phoenix

The Wellington Phoenix have to battle with different time zones every time they play away from home.

Today's match against Melbourne, however, will be a much harder battle.

Six of the squad, plus coach Ricki Herbert, jetted into Melbourne from the Middle East on Friday night after the All Whites' 3-1 win over Jordan on Thursday morning (NZT). Defender Manny Muscat has been away with Malta, on their World Cup campaign.

The remaining members of the squad trained in Wellington all week under assistant coach Luciano Trani and travelled to Melbourne yesterday.

Herbert said the disjointed week "wouldn't be a problem", citing the fact top sides around the world lost a number of their players for international duty. But they don't always have to fly halfway round the world.

There is little doubt they will be up against it today (5pm NZT) when they meet the defending champions. They have never won in three trips to Melbourne.

It will bring to an end a difficult month of fixtures - Brisbane (1-1), Sydney (0-2) and Adelaide (1-1) - three of which were away from home.

They have five points from their first five matches, a return they will need to improve on if they are to make the top-six playoffs, but are still in touch with the pack because of the high number of draws involving other teams.

Herbert is likely to plump for the same 11 who started against Adelaide last weekend. He described that performance as the best in three years as a club and he doesn't tend to mess with a successful formula.

He might, however, give exciting midfielder Marco Rojas his first taste of A-League action from the bench. The 17-year-old, who was signed after winning the Yellow Fever's scholarship, has impressed in training and was going to make his debut last weekend before picking up a calf injury.

Chinese under-23 international Jiang Chen is also tipped to get some time off the bench.

Melbourne have had a disrupted build-up as well. Striker Danny Allsopp has jetted off to the riches of the Middle East, while Billy Celeski is out for the season after rupturing knee ligaments.

It has forced coach Ernie Merrick to call for reinforcements, adding talented Brisbane midfielder Robbie Kruse and youngster Mate Dugandzic.

Wellington will do well to get anything out of the match and their best chances rest once again with the well-performing trio of Leo Bertos, Paul Ifill and Chris Greenacre.

The Phoenix can at least look forward to two home games after tonight, against Robbie Fowler's bottom-placed North Queensland and the Central Coast Mariners.

They haven't been beaten at home in eight games. There won't be any need to adjust to time zones either.