After squandering a host of chances in Sunday's draw with Adelaide, Jeremy Brockie and his Phoenix teammates desperately need to bang in a few against his former club on Wednesday.
Wellington will host their second home game in four days against the Newcastle Jets before travelling to Dunedin for another 'home' match against the Melbourne Heart on Sunday afternoon.
And the Phoenix, still adrift on the bottom of the A-League ladder, will need two wins to remain a realistic chance of qualifying for a fourth successive finals campaign.
Six points in the next week will lift the Phoenix to a total of 27 - the current number of points accrued by the Jets and the Heart who sit tenuously in the final two playoff spots.
If the Phoenix are to leapfrog those sides into playoff contention, it is probably now or never considering the difficulty level involved in their run-in.
Following this week, the Phoenix face a tough assignment away to second-place West Sydney, before a trip to Perth and a home game against Melbourne Victory concludes their campaign.
In other words, the next seven days are vital, and the success or otherwise of that stretch will have a lot to do with the Phoenix's ability to convert their chances.
According to the competition website, the Phoenix manufactured 21 efforts at goal during their 2-2 draw with Adelaide, the majority of which came when the hosts were chasing the game in the final 20 minutes.
On-loan striker Corey Gameiro eventually found an equaliser 10 minutes from time, but it could have been ever better with improved precision in front of goal. A combination of sloppy finishing and inspired goalkeeping from Eugene Galekovic kept the game level, instead of the rout it could have become.
"On another night they all go into the back of the net," Brockie said. "Obviously Galekovic pulled off a couple of brilliant saves, but it was disappointing to have a lot of chances as a team again and not put them away.
"It's always good when you get a positive result like that but, in saying that, it's a pretty disappointing changing room because we felt we probably did enough to get the three points."
Brockie opened the scoring against Adelaide, pouncing on a rare Galekovic error, with his 12th goal of the season taking him to a share of second place in the golden boot race.
"It's been a couple of games [since I scored] - including the one I was out for suspension - and it's good to put it in the back of the net. You love the tap-ins to boost the goal tally," he joked.
Brockie will be hoping to further add to his impressive account when he plays the team he represented last season. Although he left Gosford Park on good terms, Brockie admitted to the presence of an element of extra spice whenever he faced former sides.
"I love playing against old clubs, especially back here at home. I'll be looking forward to hopefully putting another one in the back of the net.
"We'll look forward to Newcastle and hopefully we can take the three points there to keep ourselves in the running."
