Lake Macquarie coach Keelan Hamilton is part of the planning process to improve the club next NPL season but concedes his place at the helm remains uncertain.
The Roosters sit bottom of the ladder with seven points from 17 games in Hamilton's first year in charge. With three games left, they are a point and nine goals behind Adamstown in the battle to avoid the wooden spoon.
Lakes' poor record comes despite a bright start, which included a 1-1 draw with Charlestown, a 1-0 win over Olympic and 2-1 victory over Rosebud across their first five games. Since then, they have conceded 47 goals and scored just seven in 12 matches.
"Obviously it's been really tough for us," Hamilton said.
"We started the season OK but we've really struggled with injuries, then momentum and we've lost a lot of belief unfortunately.
"But our target for the rest of the year is we've got to win a match and get away from the wooden spoon. That's first and foremost.
"Then the planning at the football club has been underway for several months. We've been working behind the scenes to sign and re-sign players and that will continue.
"We know we've got our challenges in that aspect but the club is doing some really good things off the pitch and hopefully it's going to be an attractive option moving forward."
Lakes were eighth last year under Josh Rufo, who built a squad around several veteran NPL players. Hamilton has focused on mostly youth this year as well as bringing in players from outside the area.
Hamilton said his future at the club had not been confirmed.
"We're talking," he said. "The club has been really supportive and they understand the situation we're in, which I really appreciate.
"We're talking at the moment but that hasn't stopped the planning behind the scenes. There's some challenges there for everyone, so we're both just trying to see what's right for both parties."
He was brought in for a two-year stint but said "obviously it's a year-to-year thing given the nature of the competition we're in".
"We knew it was going to be a challenge, but it definitely hasn't gone the way we were hoping. We were hoping to be more advanced in our results and development. That hasn't happened for a number of reasons but we've got a pretty good plan on how to change that."
He said "the biggest killer" had been the number of midweek games - 11 - Lakes had played this rain-marred year.
"It's been a tough season for everyone, but if we were going to be successful, we needed a lot of things to go in our favour and they've not in aspects like continuity of training and games, and injuries," he said.
"We don't have the depth to deal with that workload and we've lost belief now as well. The playing group has struggled. It is what it is, it's not an excuse, but it's been bloody hard."
Hamilton said Michael Bru, Luke Callen and Riley Tydd had returned from injury in recent weeks and that "should give us some extra depth" for the final games against Weston, Cooks Hill and Broadmeadow.
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