The four-time premiership player is contracted for 2019 and Clarkson said the decision on whether he suited up again next year was primarily up to the star forward.

"It will all depend a little bit on Roughy," said Clarkson, ahead of their Sunday clash with Carlton at Etihad Stadium.

"We're really keen to see out contracts where we possibly can, but his form wouldn't have been to the standard he would have liked throughout the course of this year.

"Having said that, his second half against the Bulldogs only a week ago was first-class, as was a lot of our players."

Clarkson said he hadn't spoken to the 31-year-old, who battled cancer in 2016, about his intentions.

"We probably won't until later in the year," Clarkson said.

"He's still contracted and we're hoping we can put some solid form together, get some wins, get ourselves into the finals, then we'll talk about it at the end of the year because it's not something we're thinking about at the moment."

Clarkson said a number of players, including Roughead, needed to lift against the Blues after their disappointing loss to Brisbane in Launceston last round.

While Carlton have only managed one win for the season, they did pip the Hawks in their most-recent clash late in 2017.

Roughead may have a new role against the Blues, with Clarkson saying he was in the mix to replace star defender James Sicily, who is sidelined with a broken wrist.

Jack Gunston, however, is the more likely choice.

"We will rejig things a little bit and see what we come up with," Clarkson said.

"Roughy could as he did that a couple of times early in the year and we know that he's capable of playing in different parts of the ground.

"Gunston has done it quite regularly for us over the last 18 months and when we lost (James) Frawley and (Ben) Stratton last year it was Gunno that helped us out in that part of the ground so he might have to help us out in different stages on Sunday."

Australian Associated Press