ST KILDA coach Brett Ratten says a fresh batch of injuries has spared some of his underperforming players the axe.

Ratten made five changes to his side to meet North Melbourne on Saturday, with three of them forced by injury.

Defender James Frawley (shoulder), Shaun McKernan (toe) and Hunter Clark (groin) have been added to St Kilda's injury list, with Ratten also revealing Jake Carlilse (back) won't play again this season.

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"We have got three players outside of our emergencies available," Ratten told reporters on Friday.

"One is a Category B ruckman, one is a first-year player and one is a second-year player."

Ratten forecast mass changes after last week's embarrassing 111-point loss to the Western Bulldogs - the Saints' fourth loss by nine goals or more this season.

"They (the latest injuries) all happened yesterday so it threw probably some of our plans out," he said.

Ratten said he initiated tough talks with his players in a bid to find the reasons for the capitulations.

"There has been some harder conversations this week about making sure that their performance is to the level, otherwise maybe they are on their last chance before they get put out of the team," Ratten said.

"We dug a lot deeper into why - why we are giving up big margins and conceding, that is the big thing.

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"We have played some alright football this year but when we have fallen away, we have fallen away badly.

"They're hard conversations but for us to be a better team and a consistent team ... we have to address this because we can't allow this behaviour to go from one week to the next or from quarter to quarter.

"(It was) our best review or conversation probably in the time I have been the coach here.

"If we want to grow as a team and become the team that we are striving for, we need to deal with this ... make sure that we do keep having these harder conversations."

St Kilda's president Andrew Bassat wrote to members this week, saying the club's premiership window was always more likely to be in 2021.

"We finished winning a final last year and we would like to progress to the next stage as a football team," Ratten said.

"The game has challenged probably us as a team in certain aspects but when do premiership windows come up, when are they there - I'm not sure.

"It's about being a consistent team and putting yourself in that space and at the moment we're not doing that."