FEVER PITCH: Ricki Herbert signed a contract extension with the Wellington Phoenix for an additional season but has a coaching record well under 50 percent.

Most employees would kill for a boss as generous as Ricki Herbert's new paymaster.

For those who missed it, the Wellington Phoenix coach was on Friday handed a new contract to guide the A-League club until the end of 2012-2013, with a two-year option beyond that on "football-related matters" (read: cushy director of football role).

New Phoenix chairman Rob Morrison even went so far as to say their haste to re-sign Herbert was because he had done "a terrific job" for the club.

Morrison, a mega-rich investment banker and chairman of Kiwibank, is clearly no dummy and presumably knows a thing or two about maths.

So it is surprising that he judged Herbert's four-and-a-bit season tenure to be "terrific", given that Morrison, who coached Samuel Marsden's second XI to a title earlier this year, has won more silverware than Herbert.

The cold, hard facts are that before last night's game against Brisbane Roar, Herbert's record with the Phoenix read: Played 108, won 36, drawn 27, lost 45 – a win in every three games.

That is a fair sample size and before last night the Phoenix, admittedly rebuilding from the rubble of the Terry Serepisos saga and a slew of injuries, were stone-cold last in the league. Not many bosses of professional sports teams would describe that as "terrific" and, given that the new owners freely admit they are not football experts, and are about to appoint some to their new board, why have they jumped the gun?

Herbert loves to remind people he coached the Phoenix to back-to-back finals series, but 2009-2010, finishing fourth before losing the preliminary final, is his only winning season.

Last season the Phoenix snuck into the incredibly generous top-six playoffs despite losing more games than they won.

The defence for Herbert is that with Serepisos he had an owner who could not pay the bills and he deserves credit for not spitting the dummy publicly and helping keep his close-knit squad together.

But many see him as being tactically limited and a dubious judge of talent, at least when assessing attacking players – Jiang Chen, Toto, Leilei Gao, Diego and George anyone?

Perhaps that is not surprising given Herbert was a defender good enough to represent the All Whites 61 times and indeed his big success stories in terms of player development are defensively-minded players Ben Sigmund and Manny Muscat.

The failure to identify and then retain the exciting New Zealand talents of Kosta Barbarouses and Marco Rojas is a huge black mark.

But given that Herbert is going to be around for at least the next two seasons, he needs support.

Last season's assistant coaches Luciano Trani and Jonathan Gould were hard-working and knowledgeable and have not been adequately replaced. Rugby employs separate attack and defence coaches, so why not football? Herbert could concentrate on stopping goals, and someone else on scoring them.

Of course Herbert is also the All Whites coach and wants to lead the Oly-Whites at next year's Olympics. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious but surely New Zealand Football needs to develop other coaching talent, and Herbert cannot do justice to all three jobs.

It is not going to happen now but why did Morrison and the new cashed-up owners not conduct a worldwide search for alternatives to Herbert?

Brisbane coach Ange Postecoglu has shown what can be done with a clear vision, belief in young talent and an adherence to modern, possession-based football.