Chris Fagan says Lachie Neale’s comments labelling Brisbane “selfish” during their loss to Carlton came from inside the club, not just the injured midfielder himself.

Neale will miss the Lions’ clash with Fremantle at Optus Stadium on Sunday with a knee issue, but the former Docker and reigning Brownlow medallist made a splash earlier in the week with a damning assessment of their Opening Round performance.

The Lions weren’t “cohesive on defence” and “chose some easy options” as the Blues roared back to beat them on Friday night, according to Neale.

Fagan bristled at what he felt was a perception Neale was lashing his own teammates and said those points first emerged in the team’s review of the defeat.

“He didn’t say it. He talked about what we talked about,” he said.

“I was really disappointed when I heard it reported that way, we had a meeting on Monday, we looked at the first 50 minutes, which was absolutely outstanding, we looked at the next 25, which were awful, and we looked at the next 50 minutes which was good.

“All Lachie did the other day was report that back, he wasn’t giving his opinion.”

Neale’s absence is a significant loss for the Lions, who will need to turn to midfield depth options at the same time they scramble to cover Keidean Coleman across half back.

West Australians Deven Robertson and James Tunstill are both in the squad and in the mix to replace Neale, while Conor McKenna is poised to return in Coleman’s place.

Fagan said he was wary of a Fremantle side keen to impress as they continue their build.

“They’re a young team, they are a year older now, they had a lot of change last year and probably had a fairly up-and-down sort of year, they will be keen to start the year well,” he said.

“I can imagine what their fans will be like, they will be red-hot this weekend. We are expecting a tough game, it is always hard to go over there and win.

“We go pretty well at that oval, but we are expecting the toughest of contests and we are sort of hoping that we can take the form that we should for most of the game last week and apply it to the entirety of the game, because that’s what we will need to do.

The experienced coach refused to way in on the divisive one-year extension handed to rival Justin Longmuir, but did say: “I am glad he has got another year ... he is a good man”.