Merrick said the winning penalty awarded to Bruno Fornaroli by referee Kurt Ams was incorrect and expressed frustration at a string of calls he said had gone against Phoenix this season.

“I don’t understand where the referee got the penalty from, that really killed us," Merrick said post-match. "We haven’t had a good run when it comes to decisions like that.

Kosta Barbarouses earned the visitors their own penalty and one the Phoenix boss said was well deserved.

“Kosta's (penalty) was more of a trip," he said.

"If you watch Bruno’s penalty claim, he’s got hold of the shirt of Marco Rossi and then he goes for an overhead kick, and almost kicks Marco in the face actually, and misses the ball pulling Marco down on top of him. Marco gets the yellow card and they get a penalty.

“In the first half the assistant referee called Kosta Barbarouses offside when the replay showed he was onside. It continually happens to us.”

Merrick said the simple solution to eradicating similar errors was video refereeing, a point Adelaide United midfielder James Holland made just last week.

“I think when the video referees come in those situations will resolve themselves so much better, I can’t wait for that actually,” Merrick said.

“(We’ve) got to have video referring and it’s been proven to be much more accurate in every other professional game.

"We need it now - we’ve already been called eight times offside when our players were onside.

“Look at (Kerem) Bulut the other day, it just keeps happening… assistant referees don’t seem to give the benefit attacking team, as they’re supposed to do.

“They pull up and often when a player is through it’s a one-on-one with a goalkeeper, so we'd get a lot more goals in the game if we weren’t pulled up incorrectly for offside calls.”

Merrick added: “I think the sooner we get accuracy on penalties and offside calls the better. The video referee, I’m sure it’ll be difficult to begin with but then it will be more streamlined and the game will be a much more honest game.”

While the Nix boss believed they were punished unfairly, he conceded they had a poor first half.

“I thought we didn’t start off well, the first half Melbourne City dominated,” he said.

“We were spending too much time defending rather than keeping possession, weren’t getting an option wide because our fullbacks weren’t taking risks going forward.

“I’m disappointed we didn’t (get a draw) the players worked really hard right to the end, they had two or three chances to equalise with some crosses at the end of the game, just didn’t get the last foot on it.”

Wellington travel to Adelaide next week for a bottom of the table clash with Adelaide United.