The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

How has Mark Rudan made Wellington Phoenix one of the most exciting teams in the A-League

Autoplay in... 6 (Cancel)
Up Next No more videos! Playlist is empty -
Replay
Cancel
Next
Roar Guru
1st January, 2019
7

Mark Rudan has the potential to end up being one of the best coaches the A-League has ever seen, but how has he gotten to that point with a team that last season narrowly avoided the wooden spoon?

Formation
Mark Rudan has chosen what is, in my opinion, one of the best (if not the best) formations in football. For me, a three at the back with two wing backs is such a good formation. If you have wing-backs with good stamina you have a perfect balance.

You have such a dangerous attack (especially with the 3-4-1-2 formation), as the wing backs play very wide, which means that there will always be width in the attack, there are three at the back, which means that if Wellington is running out of options forwards there will always be options back, which means that they can pass back, calm down and reset the play.

Also, when you’ve got a great attacking midfielder that can break down the defence and is comfortable on the ball, which is something that Wellington have with the likes of Sarpreet Singh, he is allowed to stay forward, and if out of energy can take a bit of a breather, because of the three at the back and two wing-backs along with what becomes two defensive midfielders.

The perfect number 10
Mark Rudan has given Sarpreet Singh a lot of game time considering he’s only nineteen years old, and Singh has replied with great form. Since they have three at the back and two wing-backs, it allows him to roam around and it means he doesn’t have to do much defensive work. He is so good at making something happen, he will get the ball and in the blink of an eye he’s played Roy Krishna through, or gotten around a player.

Since he has amazing accuracy with his passes, he can switch the ball to the opposite wing, which opens up the attack. He really is playing in his dream formation at the moment.

Roy Krishna
Roy Krishna has had a great start to the season, scoring five goals in ten games and being on the same amount of goals as big-name players like Ola Toivonen and Keisuke Honda. He fits really well into the formation, as his great burst of speed allows him to play on the shoulder of the last defender, a skill which he has really improved in his time at Wellington.

Roy Krishna

(Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

Advertisement

As sad as it is for me to say it, he completely tore a defence that was almost unbreakable in the past two seasons in the game against Sydney FC, with his burst of pace just being a bit too much for Jop Van Der Linden (in my opinion Aaron Calver would be a more suitable player to mark him). He has worked well with both Nathan Burns and David Williams while playing up front.

He also frequently makes runs out wide, and that is a great thing for a striker to do. It’s very selfless because it will mean that you have less chance of scoring, but he drags a centre-back out wide which means that Singh can have more space to do his magic in.

I’m looking forward to seeing Wellington verse Perth, as that will be a big game and that will show us how good Wellington is, but in my opinion, they could well be the most in-form team in the A-League at the moment, and it would be amazing to see them continue that into seasons to come.

close