Newcastle are looking down the barrel of their worst goal-scoring season in A-League history as they prepare to face a desperate and defensively strong Brisbane Roar side at McDonald Jones Stadium on Friday night.
The last-placed Jets have just 18 goals - the lowest in the league - from 22 games.
With four matches remaining, Newcastle are in danger of falling short of their previous lowest return - 21 from 21 games in 2008-09. In seasons with a similar number of games to this campaign, Newcastle's worst attacking record was 23 in 27 matches in 2014-15.
In both seasons, the Jets finished with the wooden spoon and they are in a dogfight with Melbourne Victory to avoid it this time around. Victory have 15 points, one ahead of the Jets.
Brisbane, meanwhile, are in the finals mix in sixth spot, mainly from a league equal-best defence of 22 goals conceded in 21 games.
Jets coach Craig Deans has taken positives from his side's defence in their past two games, a 1-1 draw with Sydney and 1-0 loss to Central Coast, but said they needed more in attack.
"We're sitting where we're sitting, and we've been asking some questions in every game, so for us it's just a matter of us turning up on the day with the right attitude and right application," Deans said. "Then it's a matter of taking the chances when they present themselves and the last two games we had chances to win the games, especially in the Sydney one, and then defensively we've had moments, an own goal and then obviously the penalty decision last week.
"We need to score enough goals where we're not worrying about a mistake from ourselves or a decision from a referee."
"We spoke about it yesterday with the players, the easy part of football is teaching people how to defend, the hard part of football is being good enough to manipulate and control the ball.
"It's a highly technical game and it takes time to build that. It's confidence, it's ability and it's understanding and combinations within the team, so we're working on that all the time and we should have and want to score more goals.
"We've had plenty of shots in lots of games. We've outscored the opponent in shots on goal but it's a matter of having the quality to make those shots on goals count and we haven't done that often enough and that's why we are where we are.
"[Brisbane] are a good team and are in the position they're in for a reason and the challenge for us is to back ourselves and be confident enough with the ball to score goals and create chances."
In a boost for the Jets, skipper Nigel Boogaard has overcome a leg injury and recent addition Jordan O'Doherty has recovered from illness. Boogaard came off in the 64th minute of the loss to Central Coast with a knock but has trained well this week. O'Doherty missed that game but has trained with the squad the past three days.
Deans said the plan was for both to start, while Johnny Koutroumbis would return to the first XI after coming off the bench last week.
"Johnny is a strong player for us and someone that we look to from a leadership point of view as well, so we'll bring him back in and then there's a couple of other tough decisions to make," Deans said.
"We need to break the cycle of not winning and if we continue with the same players over and over and the same results come, you need to make changes."
Liridon Krasniqi has left on international duty, while Luka Prso (shoulder) is out.
