BRAD Scott believes important defender Jordan Ridley has likely strained his hamstring in Essendon's 93-point loss to the Western Bulldogs on Friday night.

The injury adds to the Bombers' woes, with the club already carrying 15 players on their injury list.

BOMBERS v BULLDOGS Full match coverage and stats

"He's got a hamstring strain, almost certainly," Scott said.

"We subbed him out immediately. When he feels his hamstring, I mean, no point sugarcoating it. 

"He'll go and get a scan. I hope to God I'm wrong, but I doubt it. It's incredibly frustrating, devastating, all the words that you can possibly think of to describe it."

Ridley was subbed out in the second quarter, leaving the Bombers without their key defender against an in-form Bulldogs forward line in which key forwards Aaron Naughton and Sam Darcy kicked 13 goals between them.

"They (the Bulldogs) just got us, bit by bit, over four quarters, which added up to a big margin," Scott said.

"Key forwards who got a hold of us and a player we could probably least afford to lose in defence (Ridley) we lost. It exposed a pretty undermanned, undersized, vulnerable defence."

The defeat was Essendon's eighth in a row, creating frustrations for the coach and the players, including captain Zach Merrett who looked disappointed with his team's performance.

"He (Merrett) is the ultimate competitor, and I think that's what we want in our group," Scott said.

"We came to the game with a plan to win the game, and he wants to win and he's a competitor and he is a winner. So, yeah, he gets frustrated. 

"I think he's doing an incredible job of, not just this year, but even the last three years, of channelling his emotions. I think if you look back earlier in his career, he was quite noticeably frustrated at times.

"But I think he's doing an exceptional job of leading our group, but he's also a human being who gets frustrated. But I can assure you he's leading our team extremely well."

For the Bulldogs, coach Luke Beveridge sung the praises of his key forwards Naughton and Darcy.

"'Naughts' (Naughton) has really come into his own after an interrupted pre-season and Sam, off his break, is now back to some really strong match fitness so they can play more minutes," Beveridge said.

"Sam might still have a run in the ruck here and he's not in the game, but if we're creating opportunities then we'd like to keep them forward a bit more."

There was an injury concern around Bulldogs vice-captain Tom Liberatore who left the field limping in the third quarter. 

Liberatore briefly returned to the game, only to be subbed out at three-quarter time. 

"He got the stops scraped against his ankle there and it just bruised him up a little bit, and he was OK, he wasn't impeded," Beveridge said.

"But we just thought a six-day break and we pulled him out of that midfield just for a brief period just to make sure he was OK.

"A little bit conservative with him tonight ... he should be fine next week.”

The Bulldogs play Greater Western Sydney at Marvel Stadium on Thursday night, while Essendon faces Sydney at the SCG on Saturday.