The answer to Popa's striking hole

Super sub no more ... Labinot Haliti is enjoying a breakthrough campaign. Source: Dean lewins / AAP

The one thing you know you'll get with Labinot Haliti is heart - he plays with it, he speaks from it.

He's a passionate footballer, sometimes in the past possibly too passionate.

Re-live all the goals, match highlights and stats as the Wanderers went on an historic run of A-League wins:

•  January 13

  2-0 v Wellington Phoenix, Westpac Stadium

• January 20

  2-1 v Brisbane Roar, Suncorp Stadium

• January 26

  1-0 v Melbourne Heart, Parramatta Stadium
   

• February 3

  4-2 v Adelaide United, Hindmarsh Stadium
   

• February 9

  2-1 v Newcastle Jets, Campbelltown Stadium

• February 16

  2-1 v Melbourne Victory, AAMI Park
   

• February 23

  1-0 v Perth Glory, Parramatta Stadium

• March 2

  1-0 v Central Coast Mariners, Bluetongue Stadium
   

• March 10

  2-1 v Wellington Phoenix, Parramatta Stadium

• March 16

  3-1 v Melbourne Heart, AAMI Park

But at the decisive point of the season, Tony Popovic has turned to the Kosovan-born striker who says the Western suburbs "have given me everything".

The result has been three goals in three games that have nudged Wanderers past Central Coast and within touching distance of the Premier's Plate. Those goals though, he says, are just payback.

"I love my job, and this is the best place I've been in my career," he said. "The people around, the players, I wouldn't ask to be anywhere else. He (Popovic) believed in me from day one. Someone like (assistant coach) Ante Milicic, who played as a striker, I can learn from.

"But Popa, he's probably the only one who's ever really believed in me. It's important to keep going to repay the faith. I'm grateful, I'm lucky and I enjoy every day.

"He showed faith in bringing me here, then playing me, and now in playing me in a position I really enjoy. But I'm happy to play anywhere and do a job for the team, especially when I enjoy every day and learn every day.

"He's honest, he keeps things simple but looks at every small detail, it's nothing I've seen before from anyone in the country. For me, there's no better two people to learn from than him and Ante Milicic. I played with Ante at Newcastle, it helps that he knows the position to give me advice and instruction on how a game will go, where to position myself so the chances and goals will come."

His parents don't have far to travel to watch him, living in Parramatta a decade and a half since they arrived here as refugees. In that sense, Haliti is back on home territory.

"Mum and Dad are here (in western Sydney), they've been here 15 years, and it is home. OK I wasn't born here, but it's given me everything.

"This is sort of like coming back to it and creating something, at the end of the season we'll look back and what I've been part of."

Haliti is off contract, though the chances of not being offered a new deal seem slim, especially given his ability to play across the front line, for all his preference to be a No.9 through the centre.

For now it is "every game as it comes", as he cheerfully admits to using a cliche, and the future can sort itself out once the season is resolved.

"(Winning at) Central Coast was good, Melbourne Heart was even better," he said. "But that was last week and two weeks ago. Now we have another game and it happens to be the derby, and it happens to be a game that if we win, that's it, we get the Premier's Plate.

"As a footballer this is what you play for, and I'm sure the rest of the boys are just as excited."

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