The negative and positive outlook on the Blues after Friday night misery

Former GWS captain Phil Davis has run his eye over Carlton after their Friday night loss to Port Adelaide.

The Blues suffered their third loss in four games overnight and it begs the question whether the Blues are going to be legitimate threats this year.

Speaking on SEN’s Crunch Time, Davis outlines the areas of Carlton’s game that needs fixing with finals just a month away.

“The negative lens for me is that there is a dark cloud, what is going on there?” Davis explained.

“They’re a dominant stoppage team that’s not being dominant, they’ve turned into a bit more of a transition team which is where the game is won a lot of the time and they’ve had big improvement there this year.

“But, when you don’t win stoppage and you lose stoppage where your backline isn’t punching off, you end up losing the territory battle and life becomes very difficult for you.

“When they’re at their best, they can dominate from stoppage, play it in their half and if they don’t win it there that’s fine because they’ll turn it over again and it’s just repetitive.

“That part of their game is the concerning bit for me and if they can't assess that and fix that, the dark clouds are real.”

Now taking a glass-half-full outlook on the Blues, Davis is of the belief all good teams have to go through a bad patch in the lead-up to finals and that this is the perfect time for Voss’ Blues to experience this slump.

Throw in the fact that a number of key stars are set to come back into the team in the coming weeks, it’s not all doom and gloom for the under-pressure Blues.

“The floor in the ceiling is the issue at the moment as the gap is so big at the moment between what their best is,” Davis said.

“Their flaw is that they’ve got to lift that gap up to give us confidence with where they’re going. We saw it last year where they started no good at the start of the year and they then started playing near their ceiling for 15 weeks straight and it was awesome they were basically in a grand final.

“At the moment, they’re just dealing with form of their players being oscillating and that’s reflective all the time. I think at the end of the day clubs can have good patches and bad patches and the optimist in me says that Carlton is having their bad patch at the right time.

“They’ll get their troops back as there are some good players not playing, Zac Williams, Blake Acres, Tom De Koning, Harry McKay and even Sam Durdin.”

The Blues will play Collingwood in Round 21 at the MCG on Saturday night.