Essendon small forward Orazio Fantasia will play in the VFL this weekend after recovering from a groin injury.

Fantasia has had an interrupted start to 2018 after his breakout season last year, missing the first two games after minor knee surgery on the eve of the season.

He played in rounds three and four, but has missed the Bombers' defeats the past two weeks against Collingwood and Melbourne.

The Bombers left him out of their side to meet Hawthorn on Saturday, but hope some game time in the VFL on Saturday against North Melbourne is the best way for Fantasia to return.

"[He] just wasn't up to [playing] a full load, so he'll play a half in the VFL. We think that is the best way to prepare him to step back into the team," coach John Worsfold said on Friday.

Fantasia kicked 39 goals last year, including five games of four goals or more, and combined with fellow small forwards Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti and Josh Green to kick 90 goals for the Bombers last season.

Injury has limited Fantasia and Green so far this season, and they have scored only 14 goals in 2018. But Worsfold said Fantasia's absence wasn't the key reason behind Essendon's struggles. 

"We miss him because we love having him out there. But we've still got to be good enough to cope with having certain players out at different times. We miss him, but that's not an excuse for us to not play with the level of intensity that we'd like to," Worsfold said.

The Bombers have lost four of their past five games, and face a crucial period of their season in the next five weeks with contests against Hawthorn, Carlton, Geelong, Greater Western Sydney (away) and Richmond.

Worsfold said the Bombers are still "building an understanding of each other", with a handful of new players in their squad.

"[We've been] learning some new styles of play. We can see that it's obvious in the way we look at it that they don't quite get it yet or don't get it consistently," he said.

"When they put it all together, things look great, and I think the players see that and how well it works. But there's still some level of understanding and chemistry they have to build with each other to put it all together and get it working well."

Essendon made the finals last year but was thrashed in their elimination final loss to Sydney, and made it clear during the pre-season the expectation at the club was to better that effort.

Worsfold denied the Bombers may have to take a step back before going forward, saying the club will continue to search for the players who can take it to a premiership.

"We don't want to panic and pick teams with a weekly focus, we're going to pick it with the big picture [in mind]," he said.

Worsfold also addressed the Bombers' third-quarter woes, with the club yet to win a third term this season. He said the Bombers had considered ways to change up their half-time break, but there was only so much they could do to halt the poor run.  

"It's a very limited time. By the time the players have gotten off the ground and when they run back out, it's 14 minutes or something like that," he said.

"But we've looked at what our program is, we've challenged each other to think of how it could be different, what those changes could elicit in terms of performance.

"We'll potentially do a couple of minor changes, but otherwise it's about getting out there with a mindset to play strong footy."