CARLTON coach Brett Ratten has accused his team of playing as individuals and says the Blues must work together as a team if they're to turn their season around.

The Blues went down to a savage Adelaide by 69 points at Etihad Stadium on Sunday after trailing dismally in both contested (149 to 123) and uncontested (201 to 158) possessions.

Further compounding their afternoon was an AC joint injury to Marc Murphy, which sidelined him after half-time. He will miss next Sunday's clash with Melbourne at the very least.

The loss followed the upset defeat to St Kilda and Ratten said coping with Murphy's absence - which could extend into multiple weeks depending on Monday's scans - had to start with his players turning around their me-first mentality.

"We have to re-engineer a few players and get them going. I think it's time a couple stood up that haven't played as well as they could have for the last few weeks," Ratten said.

"I think that's for everyone, not just one individual who's going to come in for Murphy.

"If everyone lifts a bit across the board, we'll get the result but if we're trying to do it as individuals, and 'I've got to lift 30 per cent for Murph', we're not going to get the result.

"That's a big thing that's happened in the last few weeks. Blokes trying to do it for themselves a little bit when we have the opportunity to work harder together to get the result."

Ratten said the Blues failed in their challenge to "equal or better" the Crows' expected output "by a long way".

He agreed the players didn't run hard enough both ways, and they were outnumbered at either end of the ground. 

"[The Crows'] ability to do that was, I think, work ethic. Our players have spoken about that, that we need to start working a lot harder, and not just as individuals, but collectively," he said.

"I think it was more about, 'it's not going my way', and do you go into your shell and start [thinking], 'I've got my bloke, I'm OK,' when the best teams are the ones that work together and do it together.

"At the moment, we're more about the individual and not about the team."

Defender Michael Jamison said apologising for their form over the past two rounds was the easy way out. 

"I think we've got to take it on the chin because that's what we're dishing out," Jamison said.

"If we get sad and sulk a bit and want things to change around without doing anything, it's just not going to happen.

"We've got the onus now to change things internally and if we don't do that, then teams are just going to keep being aggressive and dominate us.

"We've got to make sure we take it up to the competition now."

Jennifer Witham is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenWitham.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs.