Former St Kilda and North Melbourne midfielder Nick Dal Santo says Essendon are currently in “no mans land” as a football club.
His comments come after their 61-point humbling at the hands of Brisbane on Friday night, where the Bombers were never really in the contest after conceding the first three goals of the game.
Essendon’s wins this year have come against Adelaide (18th), North Melbourne (17th), Fremantle (16th) and Sydney (15th), with their only victory of note coming against 8th-placed Collingwood in Round 5.
Dal Santo says while Essendon are missing a number of their best players at the moment, he was still unsure where they sit.
“I don’t know (where they are) and I’ve felt this way for over 12 months,” he said on Fox Footy’s The First Crack.
“I look at their recruiting and it’s more than just what I think where they are, I think they think they’re around the mark, hence why they brought in and paid for a lot of really good players to come into that football club.
“That would say to me that they think they are around the mark to be more than competitive at finals time, that they think they’re around the mark to be competing (for a premiership).
“Clearly they’ve got some players that aren’t playing at the moment but I think they’re in this no-mans land and once again, I don’t know.
“You see performances like (against Brisbane), they won five games at the start of the year and four of them were against sides who were bottom eight teams last year.
“They were averaging under 10 goals while they were beating these teams and the only team they beat which was half decent (was Collingwood).”