Michael Voss has taken aim at his own team, bemoaning a lack of intent in a dispiriting 39-point loss to St Kilda on Saturday night.
The Carlton coach also said he would ignore speculation about his future, despite the Blues having their worst start to a season since 2019.
The Blues have just one win in eight games, the latest defeat after blowing a half-time lead for the fifth time this season to lose to St Kilda by 39 points.
While Voss said the Blues’ ball movement had improved, he slammed his team for failing to take a stand defensively when the Saints booted eight third-term goals to all but secure victory.
Voss said his midfield had been “beaten” by the Saints on a night the Blues conceded eight goals to one in the third term, and had only six tackles for the quarter.
“But if you’re looking for those moments when you get pressed by an opposition, and that could be just having three clearances in a row against you, or four clearances in a row against you, and you lose some territory, we’ve just got to be better at holding up,” Voss said.
“And that’s not a back six question, that’s an intent from the whole team to get that done.
“The reality is that defensively we haven’t been strong enough this year. We’re just getting scored against too much. So there’s some fundamentals that we clearly need to be able to clean up, but we’ve got to be far more defensively stronger than what we currently are against any side. So, when a side presses, stand up, stand up. And we’re currently not doing that.”
Voss is off contract at season’s end, and faces an enormous fight to save his job.
Asked how he would handle another week under the spotlight, Voss replied: “[I] just don’t speculate. So I don’t tend to spend a lot of time speculating on that.
“I will go home, I will have a look at the game, review it, I’ll turn up on Monday. I’ll be really clear on what we need to be able to get after, and then we dive into the week, and we find those marginal things to be able to get better next week. What circles around it is not for me to speculate on – what we will do is get after what need to be able to get better at.”
