Melbourne president Jim Stynes has urged patience as his young team battles through a faltering start to the AFL season.

With coach Dean Bailey in the last year of his contract, the Demons' stocks plummeted after a listless performance last Thursday against West Coast in Perth.

Melbourne remain eighth on two wins and a draw from five games, but they offered little in the 54-point loss to the Eagles and it put Bailey's future firmly in the spotlight.

Asked about how he thought the team was progressing, Stynes told AAP: "The hardest virtue in football is patience.

"You can't be distracted from what you're trying to achieve.

"It's like confidence - if you lose it, you've got to work hard to get it back.

"These players have their goals for the season and right now, it's not going how they want - they're finding out that it just doesn't happen.

"So they have to get back to basics and keep working on what's needed to get better."

Stynes had said before the club board meeting on Monday afternoon that Bailey's future was not on the agenda and he confirmed that again afterwards.

"It was a normal board meeting where we discussed a lot of strategic initiatives, where we're wanting to take the club," he said.

"There's a lot of great work going on at Melbourne, we're achieving a hell of a lot.

"But it's not the board's responsibility to go out and get a win this weekend."

Stynes also would not be drawn on Bailey's contract situation.

"I'm not going to discuss the details of anyone's contract situation publicly," he said.

The Demons president is confident they will acquit themselves better this Sunday when they host Adelaide at the MCG.

"There are a lot of positives about where we are - we're eighth, we haven't been that high up the ladder for a while," he said.

"This is a young team, it's going to go through these challenges, that's how it develops into a better team.

"Definitely, there's fire in the belly, we want to atone for what happened against West Coast and come out and play much better against Adelaide."

Also on Monday, Demons captain Brad Green strongly supported Bailey.

"We love Dean being our coach and we've got no doubt that Dean will be here in the future," he said.

"We're out there playing the game. He's implementing a style that we want to play and we're just not playing to that at the moment."

Stynes also said in a Radio 3AW interview on Saturday that first-year skipper Green was struggling with the demands of the role, gathering only 14 possessions against the Eagles.

Green says Stynes is entitled to his opinion and he hasn't discussed the issue with him.

"We want to move forward and that performance, as I've said, was embarrassing and one that certainly hurts deep," Green said.

"I'm the senior player and I'm the captain of this club and I've got to be seen to lead."

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