THE ESSENDON playing group is "damaged mentally" and the club is "drowning", former Bombers interim coach Mark Thompson says.
The club last week dismissed the significance of fresh revelations by Fairfax Media that claimed frozen urine samples of two Essendon players from 2012 showed elevated levels of the banned substance thymosin beta 4.
The AFL's Anti-Doping Tribunal cleared 34 past and present Bombers players in March of having been administered the prohibited substance.
Thompson said the players were continuing to feel the effects of the ongoing investigation.
"They need to find a way to be able to go forward because the club is just treading water (and) going backwards – it's drowning," Thompson told radio station 3AW on Saturday night.
"You look at the playing group, which is the most significant group of people in the brand of Essendon … they're just nowhere, they're lost.
"We've damaged them mentally, we've taken away their life in so many ways."
Thompson acknowledged the Bombers' lack of governance in the 2012 supplements regime, but said the club had shown little to suggest it had moved on.
"The way the club was managed at the time this took place was really poor, and that's why we've been fined and we're accepting guilt," he said.
"Have they [Essendon] done enough to rectify that going forward, and where we are right now … you could honestly say no because it's not working."
The World Anti-Doping Agency's appeal of the AFL tribunal's ruling in the Essendon case is set to be heard in November.