Essendon have lost four successive AFL games as the supplements saga takes its toll but Carlton coach Mick Malthouse is preparing for a Bombers’ backlash on Saturday.

Malthouse’s ninth-placed Blues are two wins behind eighth-placed Port Adelaide with two rounds remaining.

Carlton host seventh-placed Essendon at the MCG on Saturday night while in Perth, fourth-placed Fremantle can help keep the dream alive for the Blues by beating Port.

“It’s a must-win game, yes. It’s probably mini-finals in many respects for us,” Malthouse told a media conference on Thursday.

“Destiny is not necessarily in our own hands, but we have got to keep winning.

“We are going to rely heavily on Fremantle.

“We are playing a side that is in the eight, has played some fantastic football, has fallen off a bit in the last couple of weeks and that’s the danger.

“We know they have got the capability of rebounding so we have got to be very switched on and take nothing for granted.”

Next Monday, the AFL Commission is supposed to hear charges of bringing the league into disrepute against Essendon, coach James Hird, club doctor Bruce Reid, senior assistant coach Mark Thompson and Bombers football manager Danny Corcoran.

But that hearing is now highly doubtful, meaning the Bombers go into the finals with the charges unresolved, while Hird on Thursday lodged a writ with the Victorian Supreme Court seeking to have AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou blocked from the panel which will hear the doping case against his club.

“The events of yesterday, it’s an ongoing saga is how I see it,” Malthouse said.

“We’re not part of it so we just step back now and let what is to be, to be.

“It’s an AFL issue with the Essendon Football Club, not worrying about these other things that are no doubt hanging over their head.”

Port host Carlton in round 23 in a possible eighth-place playoff depending on results this weekend.