Clinging to their slim AFL finals hopes, Carlton have been heartened by news that two key players will be back for Saturday’s clash with Brisbane at Etihad Stadium.

The Blues, anxious to rebound from last week’s 22-point loss to ladder leaders Sydney, will call on Andrew Walker and Mitch Robinson returning from calf injuries.

And, according to coach Brett Ratten, they might even gamble on ruckman Robert Warnock, freeing fellow tall Matthew Kreuzer to move forward.

“When you think of the season and where it is at, these selections and any selection you make is about risk versus reward when they are coming back from injury as well,” Ratten said on Wednesday.

“Walker will play for sure and Robinson will play and we will make a call on a couple of others.”

Ratten said with the Blues barely in touch with the top eight, he had enforced a new determination at the club.

He said that, wherever the team sat in the closing weeks, their goals needed to be firmly in focus.

“If our expectations on each other sort of diminish, I think that allows you to play poor footy or some of the behaviours which you don’t want to see out on the field or how you are perceived or respected as a football team,” he said.

“You open yourself up to criticism, so I think they are the things we can’t waiver from at all.

“I can’t change and accept those behaviours whether we are up the top or the bottom of the ladder and I need to be the driver of that and I won’t change whether it’s players or staff.”

Ratten said the club needed to base all its actions in the coming weeks on the reality of the situation rather than hypothetical situations.

“If they are the facts, you can’t shy from the facts,” he said.

“If you’ve had a huge amount of injuries, you have got to actually look at that and say they are the facts.

“I think it’s not just one way or the other way to say, no you failed because you didn’t make top four or we have injuries as an excuse.”