New Melbourne chief executive Peter Jackson has urged patience with the AFL team’s besieged coach Mark Neeld.

Jackson has also revealed the struggling club is facing a financial shortfall of well over $1 million this year.

Speaking before Sunday’s MCG match against Gold Coast, Jackson said it was impossible to judge Neeld’s ability so far because of the many issues the club had faced.

Over the last 18 months the Demons have lost revered club president Jim Stynes to cancer and were fined heavily after a league investigation into tanking allegations.

Most recently, Cameron Schwab lost his job as chief executive and Jackson, the former Essendon boss, took over at the start of this month for a six-month term.

Neeld is in his second season as Demons coach.

“The team has lost games and sometimes lost miserably,” Jackson told Channel Seven’s Game Day.

“Members and supporters, they’re frustrated and rightly so – this is not going to be about turning on a light switch.

“All the external factors that have gone on (at) this footy club over the last 20 months … Mark, for a good part of that, has been right in the middle of it.

“I would defy anyone to be performing at their optimum while that’s all going on around them.

“I just think we have to give everyone a chance to prove what they can do.”

Jackson added the Demons were facing strong financial pressure.

“We’re going to have an operating loss of $1 million this year and there’s going to be other one-off abnormals on top of that,” he said.

“It will be quite significantly more than a million.

Asked if it would be more than $1.5 million, he replied: “maybe a bit north of that”.

Jackson also is unsure whether he will seek to make his tenure at Melbourne permanent.

“If you had asked me six weeks ago, I would have said you’re mad if I’d be sitting here today,” he said.

“Obviously you never say never about anything.”