KozzyCan

Gawn sounded pretty frustrated about the leaks. There is clearly an issue.

My reading of that, which had the caption 'Sounds like a man who wants to repay the faith' was that Oliver was saying it wasn't him but the club. Oliver obviously felt betrayed when he found out the club was shopping him and Geelong love bombed him. We got cold feet when we saw how [censored] the deal was. We've made a complete mess of things, this story wasn't made up.

Oh come on! Why do you think Oliver liked the post saying he was going to Geelong? This was obviously very real, stop blaming the media for the mess the club has made yet again.

It absolutely was not.

The thing that bugs me about this is the behaviour from the club has come across as incredibly indecisive and shambolic. Either the club wasn't fully aligned on the standards they set themselves and have fallen apart the moment they were tested. Or we're doing some bizarre gambit where 'we're thinking of trading him but maybe not, let's have a meeting to work it out'. Both scenarios just makes the club look terrible. People might argue that definitively putting Oliver on the trade table would have gotten us a worse deal, but I can't imagine the difference would have been much worse than what we'll end up getting back from Geelong. Reputation matters. We've already scared away Houston this year and I doubt any decent player will be wanting to join us for a while.

So just the footy department heads? And the reports that Goodwin doesn't approve of this move aren't true then?

It would be unfair to pick favourites!

The 'List Management Committee' wtf is that? Who want's to bet it's run by Pert and includes me, myself and I?

Shocked we didn't have Tom Morris taking minutes.

Every journo is getting solid info from the club because we leak like a sieve. The biggest problem with the club right now is that we don't deal with this stuff inside house. Every journo and their dog hears about our dirty linen. It shows how little trust there is within the club. Every one is trying to talk to journos and control the narrative and it only serves to make us look like a mess. Fixing this should be the top of Pert's agenda but considering his conduct over the past few weeks I expect he's probably the biggest culprit.

Luckily as this is positive news about Melbourne, Tom Morris can be completely trusted.

I think it's far more likely our club is simply poorly run than we're running some bizzaro scheme like this that yields no tangible benefit for anyone and only serves to make the club look shambolic.

That second tweet feels like splitting hairs tbh.

With everything that has gone on this year and last I'm finding it very difficult to believe that this group has another flag in them. From our flag side we've already lost Brayshaw, Jackson, ANB, Hibberd, Harmes and Brown. Obviously some of those players are more vital than others and we've got a couple of decent kids coming through but I would say it's been a clear net loss so far. Then when the club is also at war with two of its stars it's looking pretty grim. The silver lining is we're not in 2007 territory. We have a good bit of youth going for us and some good leaders who have some time left and with a couple of good drafts we could set ourselves up for a long time.

That's up to the player and their management. Generally people aren't really keen to give up money owed though.

How on earth do they get the deal done?

The concern is if the reports are true that he's veering off the rails again in the past few weeks then he might very well repeat the off-season of last year.

Martin will be on SFA

It's not where the deal started. The TPP has gone up and Oliver gets his slice of that. With things like the Mac Andrew deal and Saints offeering 900k a year to Leek Aleer I don't think that sort of money is as eye-watering as it used to be.

Geelong could re-sign Parfitt as a DFA and the media would pump it up like it's a stroke of genius.

I think it would be pretty low to hope Oliver's life falls apart again just because he plays for another team. I've been pretty disappointed in him but if going elsewhere helps him get back on track then it's probably for the best for all involved.

In the vast majority of cases, yes. You wouldn't want the top level getting involved at a level as granular as determining list needs, or trying to court a big name player. If this is about behavioral issues, the admin and CEO set the direction and if clear standards were set that have been breached by Oliver and the coach/footy dept are unwilling to take action then that's a problem. That is to say that it's not Pert's job to actually start fielding offers from other clubs and going over their heads is a disgrace. He needs to trust the list management and coach to get that done. Real dogs breakfast this situation.

Can someone please explain to me the difference between the 'footy department' and the 'list management committee'? Surely there would be some crossover there but they are being reported as having wildly different views.

I've never heard of this guy before today.

I'm so over all this. I'm at the point that I'm ready to embrace a bit of a rebuild and see if we can get back in a couple of years. We've got some good young players on our list, add a couple of years of high draft picks and who knows. You can't seriously challenge with these spotfires coming up every other week.