Star Spanish recruit Luis Garcia, right, scored for the Mariners against the Phoenix last weekend.

Michael McGlinchey summed the Wellington Phoenix's predicament up best.

By accident or design, the A-League has started to become a competition of haves and have nots. There are clubs that have the backing to spend a lot of money and then there are outfits such as the Phoenix.

Whether that should, or shouldn't be, the case is probably grounds for a lengthy debate at high administrative levels. But the fact remains that, with a salary cap in place, some squads shouldn't be demonstrably better than others.

Morne de Klerk Phoenix midfield player Michael McGlinchey is trying hard to keep his head up during a difficult period for the club.

The Central Coast Mariners aren't a big club, as McGlinchey well knows. He won an A-League title with them, before ending up at the Phoenix.

But when the two teams clashed at Christchurch's AMI Stadium on Sunday, a disparity in resources became evident in the substitutes. Where the Phoenix brought on James McGarry, the Mariners were able to inject a former Spain, Liverpool, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid star who scored a goal in their eventual 3-1 win.

Read more:

*Phoenix sign new striker

*Phoenix bus crash 'a bit of a shock'

*Dome needs to get real

Alex Jones, in on loan from Birmingham City for the jettisoned Jeffrey Sarpong, represents the Phoenix's only bit of business during the January transfer window, at a time when many of their rivals spent up large.

"It's difficult when you see in the weekend how we completely dominated a team but we put on a 17-year-old debutant, who is a promising player, but they put on Luis Garcia. That's game-changing, but there's nothing we can do about it," McGlinchey said of Sunday's match against the Perth Glory at Westpac Stadium.

Until Leicester City hoved into view and Chelsea and Manchester City imploded, the English Premier League had become a competition in which four big clubs held sway almost every season. Provided they played Champions League football then they had a guaranteed source of dough that the others couldn't match.

Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick has talked about A-League five clubs kicking away from the rest, which a salary cap ought to eliminate.

"In theory," said McGlinchey.

"It's frustrating when most of the other teams can go and get [players], I mean look at the way Melbourne City are doing things now; it's completely different to what we're doing. So we need to rely on a lot of boys who are inexperienced.

"You can all see now how well we did last season, to lead the league there for a while. We threw it away to be honest; we could've flaming won that league, but it doesn't always happen for Wellington and this is a tough season for us."

With the Phoenix having fallen to eighth on the ladder, Merrick is conscious much of what he has to say these days will be interpreted as a whinge. So what he did add on this topic was said with a degree of tongue-in-cheek.

"It's surprised me how fortunate some clubs have been - I've never seen so much activity in the January window," Merrick said on Thursday.

"I think Perth have signed five players and they didn't even worry about one they've signed [Adam Taggart] who's not going to play [this season] who came from Fulham.

"Melbourne City have now got a squad of 47 players. They've signed quite a few and I believe they've got [Alex] Wilkinson as well and [David] Carney made an amazing move to Sydney [from Newcastle].

"So everyone's been very active in the window and there seems to be a lot of money floating around, especially from the five bigger clubs: two from Sydney, two from Melbourne and now Perth and that's good to see in many ways."

Merrick won't have the services of Jones this weekend, nor the injured Ben Sigmund and suspended Albert Riera and Vince Lia. But all will be in contention to play against Western Sydney Wanderers in the following round.