Newcastle Jets caretaker coach Ash Wilson has put players on notice as they attempt to fight off the wooden spoon in their final three games of the season.
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In the space of a week, Newcastle have gone from mathematically being able to finish in the top four to last place on the W-League ladder.
Although they have registered just four points in nine outings, the Jets have competed with top sides and remain the only team in the league to have taken a point off unbeaten leaders Melbourne City.
But a 4-2 loss to Perth on Thursday night followed by Adelaide United's unlikely 3-2 win over Western Sydney Wanderers on Saturday night left the Jets rooted to the bottom of the table.
"For most part the girls' reaction in the second half was better and we tried to control the game for more patches, so that was positive," Wilson said of the Perth match. "But we didn't win, so for me it's not good enough.
"That's something that players are going to have to be accountable for and they're going to have to put their hand up and say that wasn't good enough."
The Jets, who have twice collected the W-League wooden spoon, and Adelaide share last place with the same goal differential. They are one point below Perth. They play each other Saturday night at McDonald Jones Stadium then again in Adelaide on February 27.
For the first time this season the Jets coaches have almost a full squad available for selection this week.
Midfielder Libby Copus-Brown is back from suspension. Sophie Nenadovic and Renee Pountney have returned from injury and played off the bench against Perth in their first appearances of the season.
Lauren Allan played her first full game and did herself no harm of retaining a starting spot in a performance that included the striker's first W-League goal. The assist came through a clever ball from Pountney.
"Obviously everyone needs to be putting their hands up at training and people need to make sure that they're not just going through the motions and are not expecting to play, because at the end of the day you have to work and people might take their opportunity when they come on," Wilson said.
"For us it's about going back and working out what were the positives from the Perth game, where do we need to build on and how are we going to take that into the last three games, because now there's only nine points left and we need all nine of them to finish as high as we can."
Melbourne Victory beat Canberra United 3-0 at Lakeside Stadium on Sunday.
