Aurelio Vidmar admits time is running out to rescue Melbourne City's season as star striker Jamie Maclaren approaches the longest A-League Men goalscoring drought in his career.
Maclaren failed to find the net for a ninth straight outing in Friday's 2-0 defeat to Macarthur which left City four points adrift of the top six.
Vidmar was brought in on an interim basis to put things right after Rado Vidosic's sacking early into the season but City now look in danger of missing out on a finals berth for the first time since they were known as Melbourne Heart.
And the woes of Maclaren are a major concern even if Vidmar is refusing to allow the pressure to build on the goal-starved striker.
"He's been getting decent chances for a number of weeks," Vidmar said.
"Strikers are like goalkeepers, they're a rare breed and when things are going well and they're in a purple patch they're unstoppable.
"Unfortunately, when it's not going well, you've got to keep pushing forward.
"He's really bubbly in training, he's positive and his mood is good so, what else can he do? He's doing whatever he can but the ball is just not falling his way."
City are now winless in five straight games in what is their worst run of form since 2019.
And should results go against them over the weekend, Vidmar knows the chances of them salvaging something from their campaign will shrink once more.
"The window of opportunity is getting smaller, smaller as the weeks go by," Vidmar said.
"We have to put our skates on. We're falling short before, we fell short tonight and we have got to regroup and continue to be positive.
"We created I don't know how many shots, we hit the post early and it's just not falling for us at the moment.
"Sometimes the game can smash you in the face and that's what it's doing to us at the moment."
Vidmar said he expects Mathew Leckie and Marco Tilio to return to the line-up for next week's clash with Wellington after missing the Macarthur loss with soreness.
