The Blues head to Perth still trying to work out the reasons for the 100-point humiliation at the hands of Hawthorn in their last outing two weeks ago.
With a week off to digest that Friday night fiasco, Pagan admitted he still had no concrete reason why good form became so bad so quickly against the Hawks.
But the veteran mentor was certain his side's best way to bounce back was to attack - keeping the ball away from Matthew Pavlich, Jeff Farmer and Ryan Murphy in the process.
"We could put numbers back behind the ball, and make it sort of merry-go-round football but it doesn't help our forwards or our young guys develop," Pagan said.
"And I dare say you guys (the media) would be after us at 100 miles an hour playing that sort of footy.
"I think it is really important that we get the ball into our forward line."
Unfortunately for Carlton, they could not have chosen a worse opponent to try and bounce back against, coming up against the one man they have been incapable of stopping in recent times.
Freo skipper Pavlich has torn apart the Blues in the past two seasons, including a nine-goal haul in 2005 and an 18-mark effort in the same season.
Allied to that is a serious Subiaco hoodoo, where they have not won against either WA-based team in 10 attempts, and the return of Farmer for his first game of the year, which Pagan accepted made the challenge huge.
"We have had an ability to bounce back before ... and we just hope we bring our 'A' game along. We need to if we are going to be successful," Pagan said.
"We know what a great player Jeff is and we know how keen and enthusiastic he is going to be.
"If the ball is getting into Fremantle's forward line we are going to be in trouble, so our best opportunity to stop Jeff Farmer is to get it down the other end to Brendan (Fevola)."
