Carlton president Stephen Kernahan has refused to guarantee Brett Ratten will coach out the AFL season and says a bad month could have serious consequences at the club.

Kernahan urged supporters not to focus all their disappointment about the club’s poor form towards the coach.

But he sidestepped when asked if Ratten, who Kernahan’s board last year contracted until the end of 2013, would see out this season.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Kernahan said initially in an interview with Melbourne’s 3AW radio on Tuesday night.

But he quickly hedged his bets, adding: “If that changes, I’ll let everyone know first up that it has changed.”

Asked again for a guarantee, the Blues president said: “I hope he is.”

Pressed further, Kernahan again equivocated, saying: “At this stage, he’ll be the coach until the end of the year.”

Kernahan acknowledged the Blues would be under pressure to act if they were thrashed by top-placed Collingwood at the MCG on Friday night.

The president said Carlton would be able to withstand that backlash.

But he was less certain how they would react if the Blues, on a four-match losing streak, continued to perform poorly for the next month.

“None of us will survive a month of poor form the way our club sometimes operates,” Kernahan said.

He said the Blues’ board had not sounded out Mick Malthouse or Paul Roos, who have been speculated about as potential replacements for Ratten.

Kernahan said Carlton’s heavy injury toll this season was a reason, but not an excuse for their position outside the top eight, after they had predicted a top-four finish.

“We’ve lost some really good players. Other clubs have during the season – they’ve probably handled it better than we have,” he said.

The Blues’ boss also said their confident predictions they would step up from fifth place last season to the top four this year had come back to haunt them.

“You don’t make close-ended statements in this business,” he said.