Blues battle - but Voss to stay

Carlton boss backs coach

Carlton president Luke Sayers has moved to ease pressure on coach Michael Voss declaring he‘ll “absolutely” continue as coach even if the Blues miss the finals this season.

The assurances came as veteran and former co-captain Sam Docherty conceded the Blues are “off the best teams” after losing five of their past six games to slip to 10th on the ladder.

Following Sunday’s 28-point loss to ladder r leaders Collingwood, Docherty said the Blues had to front up to their ir reality.

“We‘re off f the best teams. . That’s the reeality of where re we’re at and the reality of what we’ve get to work on,” ” he said.

“Individually and collectively, the message has got be to have a hard look at our game and get to work on that.”

Fronting the media on Monday morning, a job which done by captain Patrick Cripps last week, Sayers was firmly behind Voss (pictured), who is in his second season in charge and is contracted until the end of 2024.

“Vossy is our coach through to the end of next year,” he said.

“Michael Voss has been a tremendous asset for this football club and we‘re looking forward to doing great things with him in the future.”

Voss and Cripps had a heated exchange on the bench at the MCG during the loss to the Magpies, something Sayers was not too concerned with.

“We expect all of our leaders of the football club to have very firm conversations with one another when it isn‘t working as we would like,” Sayers said.

“We believe we‘ve got the relationships in the club to be able to have ha those conversations. versat

“If I we weren‘t having ha those conversations, c that t would not be b ideal.

“I didn‘t see the th footage but good go on them that they’re having hard conversations about what wha they can do to do better.”

Ahead of a clash with injury depleted Sydney at the SCG this Friday night, Sayers conceded Carlton had to get better, and fast, because the Blues didn’t want to “fall in to finals”.

Carlton hasn’t played in September for 10 years and will play Melbourne after the Swans.

“We‘re not playing good footy at the moment; we’re not happy with where we’re at,” Sayers said.

“We have got to get better – our goal for this year is finals.”