COACH Paul Roos says he understands the frustration of Melbourne supporters, but adds that the club is doing everything it can to rectify the situation. 

Speaking on AFL 360 on Monday night, Roos said there was no doubt that “you do carry the weight of the last six or seven years”. But he remains optimistic Melbourne can turn its fortunes around.

“You have to try and shed [the past] and it’s hard because you understand how difficult it’s been for the Melbourne supporters,” he said.

“Even though [I’ve] only been there for the past 18 months … you can feel it’s real. It’s amazing. The whole Melbourne footy club goes into melt down when they lose – it’s just extraordinary [and it happens] internally, externally and [with the] fans.

“I can understand why it is. I didn’t see all of their games [previously], but I saw some of them and we’re all aware of where they were at, so I understand it’s real.

“So you feel it – and you wish you could’ve done something then. But you can’t. So what you try and do is acknowledge [it] and get back to people who have emailed you. Then you put your nose down and backside up and keep working, because that’s what we need to do.”

Roos was adamant Melbourne had improved – a fact highlighted by the most number of wins since 2011 – but added that it was going to take time for the team to achieve greater consistency.

“I get more emails when we lose than win. I think what that reflects – whether we like it or not – is that we have to carry, as a current group, what’s happened in the last eight or nine years. It’s just real,” he said.

“I get very few [emails] when we win. But when we lose, people say ‘it’s the same old, same old and we’ve seen this before etc’. It’s hard not to get affected as a coaching group.

“But we’re really clear on what we have to teach the players and [we’re] disappointed that they’re not picking it up as quickly as we like, so we need to continue to find different ways to get our message across.

“Have we improved? Clearly we’ve improved, but has it been enough for the Melbourne supporters. Probably not on the back of the last six or seven years – [and they say] ‘here we go again, here we go again and here we go again’. We get caught up in that and that’s just the reality of it.”