The Blues haven't started a season this poorly since 1989 and their loss to Melbourne on Saturday highlighted a number of key problems.
Their forward line was non-existent without Jarrad Waite, who was dropped due to bad form, and they have a serious lack of on-field leaders.
Veteran Andrew Walker admitted the Blues go quiet during games, while football manager Andrew McKay said leadership remains an issue.
Former skipper Chris Judd remains sidelined due to an Achilles problem and the Blues desperately miss his on-field leadership.
Captain Marc Murphy fronted the media on Monday and denied any issues, saying he and the other leader have made great improvements.
"I think I've got the respect of all the boys and the club as a whole … that's all that matters to me," he said.
"We're not the loudest group but I think we've taken steps forward … we've acknowledged that over the last few years.
"On the weekend I thought we were talking enough and communicating. It's probably a bit hard to say, from a media point of view, who's speaking out there when you're not out there yourself.
"But as a leader of the club myself I think the voice has been pretty encouraging over the last couple of weeks when I suppose Essendon was a really bad week for us and the weekend wasn't great for us either.
"On the weekend blokes were starting to speak up and trying to change things out there and that's what we need more of."
Vice-captain Kade Simpson agreed with his skipper.
"No, I don't think it's a problem," he said.
"I think we've got a great leadership group. Murphy's leading by example, so I think we need 22 guys to put their hands up and all lead by example."
Kernahan said it was unfair to point the finger solely at Murphy, but did say "at 0-4 you'd say no" when asked if the leadership group was doing its job well enough.
"Murph is a young lad, he has played 160 games, he is 26 years of age," Kernahan said.
"You can't lump it on one person, it's never been about one bloke.
"It's about everyone buying into what we've got going on."