Carlton under pressure amid reports of 'factions' among players

Despite assurances from Carlton bosses, Blues head coach Michael Voss is 'coaching for his career' ahead of their crucial clash against Essendon this weekend. The spotlight has been firmly on the Blues this season after an improved showing under Voss in 2022 which saw them narrowly miss the top eight.

Undefeated after four rounds, the Blues have since collapsed out of the finals race, with their only victory since round five coming against the lowly West Coast Eagles. Voss has since been heavily scrutinised, to the point where club president Luke Sayers publicly backed him in as coach.

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Questions over the form of former Coleman Medal winner Harry McKay have persisted throughout the season, while the Blues have also endured some off-field turmoil with long-time board director Craig Mathieson stepping down after reportedly being involved in a 'verbal altercation' in the club rooms following the round 11 loss to Sydney.

That spotlight is only set to intensify against Essendon this weekend, with the Bombers having shown marked improvement under new coach Brad Scott, who the Blues had considered hiring as coach before settling on Voss for 2022. It has emerged that there are rumblings among Blues players as to the direction of the club, as reported by Sam McClure on Footy Classified.

“Michael Voss is coaching for his career at Carlton in the same way in the next 11 weeks Carlton are playing to save their season. There is a lot going on behind the scenes," he told the Channel 9 program.

“I’m not just talking about board level and whether they believe Michael Voss is ultimately the right man to coach Carlton to its next premiership. There are players that are starting to wonder if in fact they have the right system.

"There are opposition clubs I have spoken to over the weekend that believe Carlton do not have a discernible game plan. There are players at Carlton who don’t want to be playing with one another, there are factions developing within the playing group, as well.

“There is a lot going on at the Carlton Football Club. That is not to say Michael Voss will not survive this and they won’t do what Richmond did with Damien Hardwick and what Collingwood did with Nathan Buckley.”

McLure said a loss to Essendon this weekend would be particularly embarrassing for the club, after the club passed on him in favour of Voss. Essendon endured a messy search for their next coach after parting ways with Ben Rutten at the end of 2022, eventually settling on Scott.

“If they are well beaten against Essendon on Sunday night by the man who they probably should have got to coach in many people’s eyes — and that is Brad Scott, who was available to them before he went to Essendon — it will symbolic of not just how Essendon have gone forward, but in fact how Carlton have gone backwards,” he said.

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Voss's men were competitive against Melbourne on Friday night and twice got within two kicks during the final term.But they posted their lowest score of the season in an 8.13 (61) to 6.8 (44) defeat; their seventh in the last eight rounds.

With their season well and truly on the line at the mid-way point, Blues defender Sam Docherty says it's on the players to lift their skill level. They face the Bombers on Sunday and the Gold Coast Suns the following round, with both games at the MCG.

"Us as players need to take the brunt of it," Docherty said. "We're the ones out on the field, we do all the work during the week as a group to get us ready to play in these big games and it's on us to go out there and execute the plan and execute skills."

Docherty earlier in the week spoke out against the 'narratives' surrounding the club in recent weeks. His comments about the cohesion within the team stand at odds with the report McClure gave on Tuesday night.

"There's obviously a lot of narrative around the four walls but we tend to speak about the stuff that's important to us," Docherty said. "I'll let (media) talk about the external narrative and everything that's going on outside of us.

"We've got a pretty strong focus on playing better footy at the moment and I think that's pretty obvious. As players we're pretty clear on the footy side that we want to be, and the system that we're running.

"We're all on board with that. It's been a collaborative process across the whole time that Vossy's been at the club. It's a matter of executing exactly what it is. We also play a pretty hard game against some pretty good footy sides and Melbourne was one of those."

With AAP

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