Carlton president Luke Sayers is easing pressure on Michael Voss, saying he'll continue as coach even if the Blues miss the finals this season.
Carlton, with five losses in their past six games, have slipped to 10th on the ladder but are just two premiership points shy of eighth spot.
Voss, in his second year at the helm, is contracted until the end of 2024.
Asked if Voss' tenure was safe even if they missed this year's finals, Sayers replied: "Absolutely.
"Vossy is our coach through to the end of next year," he told reporters on Monday.
"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."
Carlton's form slump continued on Sunday with a 28-point defeat to arch foe Collingwood.
During that loss, Voss and captain Patrick Cripps had an apparently tense conversation on the bench.
"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 those conversations.
"If we weren't having those conversations, that would not be ideal.
"I didn't see the footage but good on them that they're having hard conversations about what they can do to do better."
Sayers did, however, admit to unease over the Blues' rough patch of results.
"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 - we're going to get back to work and our goal for this year is finals.
"We did a review 18 months ago and we believe we've got the potential here to be playing finals footy and that is our goal for this year.
"We don't want to fall across the line, we want to impact finals."
Carlton play Sydney at the SCG on Friday night before meeting flag fancies Melbourne at the MCG in round 12.
