ESSENDON coach Matthew Knights says the end of a tumultuous season won't bring him any sense of relief.

The Bombers will finish in the bottom four despite beating some quality opponents this year, with Knights disappointed with the side's inconsistency more than anything else.

"Our draw suggests that ... after we play the Bulldogs, we would have played 15 games against top eight teams, so a big chunk of our year is played against really good top opposition as the ladder suggests," he said.

"Out of that have come really good performances against St Kilda, Hawthorn and Carlton at times and even the Western Bulldogs the first time we played them. But then on the flipside of that, the ability to not be able to string the corresponding weeks together has been really disappointing."

Knights was under no illusions that the list would need to significantly improve during the off-season if it was to play finals in 2011.

"The reality is the Essendon Football Club is a strong club that wants to play finals each and every year, irrelevant of age and experience, and we haven't achieved that this season which is really disappointing for all concerned," Knights said.

"When your club goes through a difficult time or a difficult form line on the journey we're on, everything gets examined, which is sometimes a really good thing.

"So we're going into tomorrow night's game and the off-season under no illusions of how much hard work has to be done and how many different areas of the footy club we have to look at to get better."

A string of injuries hasn't helped the club's cause, with casualty numbers growing to 17 this week with captain Jobe Watson (ankle) and Mark McVeigh (knee) tomiss Saturday night's clash with the Western Bulldogs.

However, Knights insisted there were still some positives he would take from 2010.

"A lot of good things have happened at the club with our program and the evolution of some of our players, and then the unearthing of some real top-end talent of (Jake) Carlisle, Travis Colyer, Jake Melksham, Ben Howlett, Kyle Hardingham and (David) Zaharakis in his second year."