Ted Lasso

Shiel would be fantastic, i think we will get some very good offers for Jack watts if we decide we should move him on, I find it hard to see where he fits into our next premiership side, dylan shiel i don't have the same problem with.

Can't see any way the AFL would want Essendon down on it's knees the same time as we are, pretty certain some sort of deal will be struck

I noticed that too, and a few people have mentioned that he has shown abit, surely if they were to upgrade one player it would have to be Magner? we are crying out for mids at the moment. Next year may be very interesting though.

I hope he keeps it, i think he is going to be our best player for a number of years, he is not terrible on an overall basis now, he gets great tackle counts, he generally does something when he has the ball and is hard at it, but if he is suffering from OP or it's still the fracture which both are entirely possible we need to do the right thing by the young man and suck up whatever on field pain it might cause in the short term we are very lucky to have several players who could fill the role of captain while the others are out, Garland or Chip would be okay in that position too in my opinion.

Well said, and to be honest i wouldn't be surprised if the suggestion that the captaincy might be abit much for jack is being floated around the club anyway, they clearly know things we don't or you would think that Rawlings, craig, brown, viney someone would have suggested this to Neeld anyway.

Watts might make a decent bit of trade bait, Frawley i think we should do what we can to keep, quality full backs are worth their weight in gold.

He basically says Trengove would make a great captain anywhere but here. what a [censored]

Haha that's alright, I like the idea though, these are the sorts of players that should be doing the job they have asked of rodan and co. if we could get him for a reasonable price i highly doubt anyone would say no, he isn't going to make a fortune with his injury history in any case i wouldn't have thought.

That's fine, and i agree on the most part but 2.5 mil over two years is far to much, people thought 500k to land dawes was well overs, imagine what they'd say about that! Having said that i think we are a reasonable chance of getting Thomas and Cooney, if that's the way the recruiting team decide to go, i personally hope it is, we need a stronger midfield at least until Viney, Toumpas, Trengove and co take some steps forward in their development, and it would give jones and grimes some much overdue support.

He could be an elite midfielder of the comp, i still think he will be, it's time Neeld looks at the bigger picture, we aren't getting near finals this year, it's round 6 and being able to say that with total confidence is very depressing, the bloke clearly isn't right so we relieve him of being captain, put him on ice, how good would a happy fully fit Jack Trengove be first day of pre season?

Damien Barrett is saying exactly what walls did and pretending it was his idea, seriously this bloke will take any excuse to have a dig at Melbourne. http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-05-07/dees-should-give-jack-a-break

Last year Benell and ablett had about 80 possessions and 8 goals between them or something stupid like that, Although Neeld had cale morton tagging Ablett.

He could play any position we asked him to basically, he would command the respect of our young midfield and he credits a huge part of his rise as a footballer to Mark Neeld, if he wants to leave Collingwood we should make him and offer he can't refuse, doesn't mean we can't target others to. pretty confident we won't regret it! add in a cheap adam cooney and nick dal santo and we will be looking abit better

Absolutely not. the blokes Knee is in awful shape and he is well past his best, you float that sort of money and we would more than likely have a real chance of getting dale thomas who would be a much better prospect if he is there for abit cheaper he may be worth a look but that 22-26 age group would be much better, we need them to help us revive our team, not prop us up for a year or two if they even manage to get on the field.

Always painful to think of how different our situation could/would be if we had signed Ross Lyon instead of Mark Neeld.

We are looking to the future, and are going to struggle to win alot of the games we are playing in, to me it makes no sense to play Jamar when we could be giving Spencer game time, and it's not like he hasn't earned it, he's been really good at VFL level.

We clearly have several players who could be captain, inc Nathan jones, the question being is the captaincy really JT's biggest issue or some sort of serious injury that has been holding him back the past two years?

Just went back and read some of the threads when Mark Neeld was appointed, Mick Malthouse after strongly endorsing Neeld as a potential senior coach quoted " Melbourne will make the finals next year (2012) with the right coach" well.... Scott pendelbury and dale Thomas both credited alot of their rise as players to Mark Neeld It really makes you ask yourself what has gone so wrong between then and now to see us in this position.

At least Judd would offer that much, he certainly wouldn't hurt us in the middle either, as much as he isn't what he was, i doubt he will leave carlton though, but i get what you mean, Dal Santo or Montagna might be worth a crack?

If we are 2 years behind where North are now, does that mean Neeld is expecting to make finals next year? because North did last year so that would make sense? alot would have to go right for us.

Either star mids from other clubs or top draft midfield prospects, Having said that if the bloke was a free agent that we'd get for nothing he would be worth considering after my first two points had been explored fully

Our two most experienced players on our list were dropped to the VFL through lack of form last week, that really says it all doesn't it?

If we get a priority pick i think we should consider floating one of the picks as bait, see if a club would offer us a quality midfielder

Nathan Jones could probably miss the rest of the year and still win our Best and Fairest! He is our spiritual leader regardless of who has the captain tag next to their name.

If not Jones, colin Garland could also be a pretty decent co captain in my opinion.