Kennett pointed the finger at Clarkson and the players in a pointed letter to members on the club’s website during the week, saying the rest of the club was in fine shape, but the football department was not.
The Hawks are clinging onto eighth spot, but Clarkson denied changes to the side for the possibly finals-deciding clash with the Demons was driven by the president.
"Obviously Campbell Brown and Rhan Hooper and Carl Peterson have all missed for various reasons over the past little while, and it's good to have those guys back into the side," Clarkson said. "(Wayde) Skipper had played some good footy for us for about eight to 10 weeks, and we were winning games of footy in that time.
"He fell away for a couple of weeks and we tried 'Tails' (Simon Taylor) last week and he wasn't physically ready to withstand the rigours of the game at AFL level.
"We've made some changes that will hopefully help us get better, and play a better brand of footy - all we're trying to do is get back to the sort of form that we demonstrated over a regular patch of about eight to 10 weeks that was pretty good.
"When you're performing like we have in the last two weeks, you need to inject a little enthusiasm and spark, and with those four or five changes in the side we hope we get that against Melbourne tomorrow."
Clarkson said all departments of the club were used to Kennett speaking his mind on any area of football.
"That's his style - it's not foreign to us, it's his manner of responding to criticism and also informing our members," Clarkson said. "He's done it before, and whilst he's president of our footy club he'll continue to do it, it makes us all accountable.
"We don't need reminders from our president nor the footy world that our performances over the last two weeks have been poor.
"Whether it was outcoached, outplayed, out-skilled, whenever - when you lose, you're all of those things and whenever you win you've done that to the opposition.
"We were poor on all fronts last week and we need to do something about that."
