Interim Wellington Phoenix coach Chris Greenacre was pleased with his team’s performance despite going down 1-0 to Newcastle Jets in a Hyundai A-League game in Auckland on Saturday night.
“Full credit to every one of them; they gave everything they had and we were a bit unlucky to just come up short,” Greenacre said.
“We had a game plan to get Burns and Krishna in behind and they worked it well.
“I asked them to be courageous and they responded brilliantly.
“I am immensely proud of every one of them and they were a bit unlucky not to get the win.
“The Jets are a top-class team and were ruthless when they got the chance to score.”
Greenacre had special words of praise for 19-year old midfielder Sarpreet Singh.
“Sarpreet is such a good footballer with the talent to find pockets of space.
“I thought he stamped his authority on the game tonight.
“He is a huge talent and the longer we can keep him in New Zealand the better.”
Perhaps the biggest disappointment for Greenacre is that he won’t be able to field an unchanged team next week with five players away on international duty.
“We’ll have to do a bit of juggling but it is what it is and we will just get on with it,” he said.
