Blues great on why Carlton continues to fail

CARLTON great Mark Maclure isn’t surprised with the position his former club finds themselves in.

The Blues had another disastrous game of football on Friday night against Melbourne, managing just six goals in a performance that summed up their year.

Heading into 2023 with so much hope and optimism, Michael Voss’ Blues recorded their fifth straight loss on the big stage following a tumultuous week both on field and off it.

Maclure, who has seen it all at Carlton, admits he had no expectation around the Blues heading into the year given the way they football club has performed over the last two decades.

“I thought they could play finals but they’ve shown they can’t,” Maclure told SEN’s Crunch Time.

“I didn’t expect anything of them, have you seen our football club? 20 years of expectation and this is the best we’ve ever gone.

“You’re trying to tell me that I didn’t have any expectation, you go back over the last 20 years and tell me who’s been better and when we’ve been better?”

“I’ve got no problem with Michael Voss, I like what he’s trying to do, but are they actually listening?”

Responding to Maclure’s comments that this is the best the Blues have gone over the last 20 years, Gerard Whateley said if true, Carlton has a big decision to make at the end of the year.

“You can’t not make finals forever, they’ve had the razed earth rebuild which was the worst imaginable strategy and it’s been painful and gruelling,” Whateley said.

“They are miles overdue to play finals, they’re at least three years overdue now.

“If that’s true [that this is as good as they’ve gone], you would have to blow it up, this is the choice you have to make at the end of the year where you go ‘are we going to ignore all of the evidence in front of us and go again with the same group that has achieved nothing or are we going to make change’?

“They’ve made change off the field all the time, it’s all they ever do, they need a period of top-down stability.”

– HUGH FITZPATRICK