Disclaimer: I have not seen the Phoenix v Jets game from yesterday, only read the match reports.
Could the injury to Paul Ifill be a blessing in disguise for the Wellington Phoenix? As our season has meandered along offering the odd morsel of hope much of the discussion has been around the teams attack or lack of it. People said it was because Paul was out of form; he wasn't the player he was last year. This is absolutely true but it ignores some other facts around the rest of the teams lack of attacking verve so far this season.
This mini-revival of the last month has not coincedentally seen both Paul Ifill and Tim Brown return to goal scoring form. With the loss of Iffy the pressure has to be spread across the rest of the attacking options. Big Dylan now has two goals to his name, Greeny took his season tally to 5 yesterday and Marco opened what should be a huge goal-scoring account for the club. Add to that Tim Browns constant contributions and you have players that between them can score goals and now without Iffy they have to.
Perhaps earlier in the season there was a subconcious sense that if we give the ball to Paul everything will turn out alright and the other players didn't stand up. Now they simply have to, no fall back option of giving it it to Paul and seeing what he can do. Its that rationale which suggests it could be a blessing. The obvious flipside of that is the other players don't stand up at all and we end up in a worse position than we were before.
But hey im a glass half full kind of guy...
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