Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has backed comments he made last season surrounding his side's finals ambitions, and believes his side can still feature in September.
The Pies have won just one of their opening five matches this season, and face their toughest test of 2017 so far when they face Geelong on Sunday after a five-day break following their loss to Essendon on ANZAC Day.
Buckley's seat continues to heat up as his side struggles for wins, especially after suggesting last August his job would be on the line if the club failed to make the finals this season.
"I've always had fairly high expectations," Buckley said during his press conference on Friday.
"I'm not saying we're high performing at the moment, but high performers everywhere always put a little bit more pressure on themselves than others do. It's a reality in the industry.
"We've had a really good week. We've emphasized the things we're doing OK, we've identified a couple of the areas and themes we really want to continue to work on and we believe that if we get that right that we're going to be pretty hard to beat."
After Eddie McGuire praised Buckley throughout the week by saying "there is no better person to have our club's future in his hands than Nathan Buckley," the former club champion said he's felt comforted by the outpouring of support this week.
"I'm going OK. I have great support internally and I've actually been asked [how I'm going] a fair bit this week in particular," Buckley said.
"I actually probably think about it more when people ask about it than when I'm in my quiet moments. I'm extremely fortunate to be leading the footy club at this stage and the reality is I've got a job to do and I'll get assessed on the ability to do that job, which comes down to wins and losses.
"[That's] where I was coming from last year (with the comments). [The pressure] is definitely still outside the four walls.
"We're actually still in control of our destiny and until that's not the case, you don't lift your eyes or take your focus off the things you can actually impact on."
With their lone win coming against Sydney in round three, the Pies are currently in the bottom six on the AFL ladder, and sit in 13th position, equal with the Lions, Hawks and Blues with four points.
While their start to the season hasn't been ideal by any stretch, Buckley still believes September football is more than possible, but admits his side needs to iron out some minor details before then.
"We're still aiming to play finals. We're 1-4 and we play a top-of-the-table Cats team. That's as far as we can afford to look. We've got some pretty good players and some players who are playing some pretty important roles for us," Buckley said.
"I think we're not far off … and we'd like to show that it's not far off. But it's a matter of how we go about it and what we do.
"I can't argue against what we've put forward at this point. But what we have put forward has been a largely competitive unit that has just been 'not quite' so we're going to keep working on that."
