COACH John Longmire doesn't disagree with Mick Malthouse's assessment that his Sydney Swans may not be good enough to warrant a top-two position at season's end.

Malthouse believes Hawthorn and his old side Collingwood deserve to be first and second on the AFL ladder, not the Swans and Adelaide, teams that currently occupy first and second respectively.

On Saturday night, the Swans had their nine-match winning streak ended in a tight eight-point loss to the Magpies at ANZ Stadium, leaving them tied with the Crows and Pies on 15-4 for the year.

"We don’t get too caught up in what happens outside the footy club," Longmire told reporters in Sydney on Monday.

"Mick is entitled to his opinion and good luck to him.

"Going into the weekend, us and Collingwood had won five games each against top eight teams.

"The record has been OK, but we still have to improve.

"I don't completely disagree with Mick, we've still got to improve, and I've said that every week."

Malthouse didn't hold back on his distaste for the Swans, stating they weren't good enough to deserve a top two finish and had been helped by a friendly draw.

"I just can't get my head around it, looking at the ladder and seeing Sydney on top, Adelaide second," Malthouse said on Melbourne radio.

"I can't get my head around them being the best two sides in the comp - because they're not."

Longmire said the best way to answer the critics was to get back on the winner's list, starting against the Western Bulldogs on Sunday.

And he wouldn't be wasting too much time analysing Malthouse's thoughts.

"We don't come in here on a Monday, look at Mick Malthouse's comments and throw the world upside down and do the review completely different because of it," he said.

"He's entitled to his opinion and a lot of people think he's right in that and that's fine, it doesn't worry me and it doesn't worry the players."

Longmire is hopeful Sam Reid will get through training this week and return from a partial tear of his medial ligament that has kept him out of the past two games.

"He ran today and ran really well," Longmire said of the young key forward.

"He'll do a bit of training on Wednesday and hopefully do full training on Friday.

"That's the plan.

"He'd be a really good in for us, even when he's not kicking bag of goals, he allows other players to do other things and he's an important player in our structure."

Despite playing the lowly Bulldogs this week, before closing the season against Hawthorn and Geelong, Longmire won't be experimenting with his list or tactics.

"A win is too important," he said.

"The thing we want to keep tweaking is some of the things we did wrong from the previous week."

James Dampney covers Sydney AFL news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_JD