On Saturday Mick Malthouse wanted to talk premiership windows and how one might unexpectedly open quickly for Carlton this year. On Sunday night he was not quite so loquacious on the matter.

Losing to Port could not be the sound of a premiership window closing when it hadn't yet opened. Malthouse had said it might open quickly this year but right now, he rightly said after the loss to Port, they need to be more troubled to win games before flags.

Port was a window for Carlton, not on a season in its entirety, but a worrying look at some players. Terry Wallace was unimpressed with the glimpse he got of Dale Thomas, convinced Carlton had not only paid too much for him but that his recruitment created muddle-headed thinking about the list.

"To put so much money into a guy who turns 27 later this year, who has basically missed 18 months with injury, and where Carlton are at, there's some real questions about whether it was the right purchase for them or not," Wallace said on SEN radio.

Wallace will be accused of jumping too quickly at shadows and that after having played only five games last year with serious ankle injury Thomas should be given time. However the issue he is talking about is what the deal says of an uncertain club caught between the need for youthful regeneration and one clinging to mature players hoping a window does open up for them as the year unfolds.

“I just think where they are and the dynamic of that side, does he go with those older senior players and continue to go down that path and have mediocre performances? Do you look at the young boys he left out of the side and go with them? I think he’s got some real headaches,” Wallace said.

One of those young players is key defender Matthew Watson, who had a poor night shuffling between key forwards none of whom he could match in the air or at ground level. Watson was pick 18 in the draft of 2010 and has played just 16 games and had a foot fracture last year. He has never been quick and was towed around by Justin Westhoff and then John Butcher to contests on Sunday night. He  was also troubled by body contact in marking contests.

"They have invested heavily in this young fellow and Westhoff made a mess of him in every aspect," Garry Lyon told the AFL website. "I am not sure they will be able to go on with him ... I am not sure he will finish the year if he can't go with Westhoff (and other key forwards)."

There has been a larger window looking for a long time at the career of Matthew Kreuzer. When you are taken at pick No. 1 you are for a time at least the shop window to the club and to date the sights he has provided have often been promising but Sunday night provided another inconclusive but more troubling look. Kreuzer has, of course, already had a knee reconstruction and last year was plagued by thumb, calf and foot trouble. His pre-season was marred by the ongoing foot trouble but he is becoming a player without position.

On Sunday night he began on the bench as relief ruck, but whenever he replaced Robbie Warnock, in the first half in particular, the momentum of the game shifted. When he was forward he had no impact.

"He is a ruckman and we want to make him a forward ruckman, it's up to him to grab that opportunity,'' Malthouse said.

"He certainly got jumped over at the end and he knows that. I don’t want to over-harp on the lead-up but Matthew missed, he couldn’t run before Christmas. It doesn’t matter how fit these blokes are training fitness, match fitness is something else. The more he plays the better he is going to get so you have to get games into him."

It was a window on Kreuzer, nothing more. It was another window on where the club wants him to play, what he is capable of doing right now and whether he will be capable of doing what they want in the future. Warnock is their  No. 1 ruck, Kreuzer does not yet know if he can be the second or even third forward.

As a game it was a window neither open nor shut but worrying in what was seen through it.