John Aloisi doesn't feel like he's coaching the current A-League Men wooden-spooners.
And Adelaide United boss Carl Veart simply doesn't want to think about the proverbial spoon ahead of tackling Aloisi's Western United on Friday night.
The clash in Adelaide will go some way to determining the fate of both clubs as they head towards the end of seasons of struggle.
Western (19 points, five wins) enter the fixture in last place, despite a healthy stretch of recent results - three wins, two draws and one loss from their past six outings.
Adelaide (ninth spot, 22 points, six wins) remain in danger of collecting the club's first wooden spoon.
"We're not looking at anything like that," Veart said.
"We're just looking at what we can do and it's about us getting three points.
"We have got six games to go and Western are on a good run of form of late, picked up some good points in the last few weeks as well.
"So it's going to be a tough game."
Aloisi, too, denied avoiding the wooden spoon was a motivation.
"We're not really looking at it or talking about it," he said.
"I said it about six weeks ago, we just want to go into every game and try and win every game.
"And I felt that in those (past) six games - even the one that we lost against Victory, the draw that we had against Brisbane Roar - that we were on the cusp of winning all those games.
"So we just want to go and try and beat Adelaide and win our remaining games and then at the end of the season see where that takes us.
"We know it was a difficult start to the season for so many different reasons.
"But we're showing now not only that we're playing good football that we were at the start of the season without getting results, now we're getting results with it.
"So there has been massive improvements."
Australian Associated Press
