Melbourne set to shut down Clayton Oliver trade talks for the second straight year

Sam Edmund is reporting that Melbourne has made the call to hold Clayton Oliver, shutting down trade talks for the second straight season.

The Demons were reportedly open to moving on the star midfielder once again and Geelong emerged as Oliver’s preferred destination.

So much so that the 27-year-old had meetings with key Geelong figures at Rhys Stanley’s farm during the week.

However, Edmund believes the Dees will pull the pin on any potential trades, given the difficulty of getting fair compensation and Oliver’s six-year, $8 million contract.

“I actually think the Clayton Oliver stuff is about to get shut completely down,” Edmund told AFL Trade Radio.

“We’re talking on Friday morning, but I think there is a very real chance, in fact it’s the most likely outcome, that at the best and fairest tonight Melbourne are going to get up and shut this down completely.

“They’ve had a look and they’ve done some tyre kicking for the second year in a row, and Clayton has as well, but such is the difficulty of the contract and the ability to get fair compensation, it just doesn’t make it possible or acceptable.

“I think the feeling is internally that they can fall back in love again with the player and the player with them.

“There’s been a lot of meetings on this. All day today and all day yesterday and having the same conversations we’ve been having.

“Ultimately, they’ve settled on the fact that Oliver will be going nowhere and they think they can make it work.”

Kane Cornes slammed the Demons for once again unsuccessfully shopping a player around and potentially bringing back two unhappy midfielders in Oliver and Christian Petracca, who wanted out in September before the club also shut that down.

“What a mess,” Cornes said.

“Your two best midfielders have had issues with the club and requested trades and Oliver had his head around playing for Geelong and sounded excited by that prospect.

“You’re not driving out to Rhys Stanley’s farm and having multiple meetings if you’re not seriously thinking about leaving.

“The way Melbourne have handled this beggars belief how unprofessional this football club has been for multiple seasons now.

“They’ve half-done this again and are risking a player coming back along with Petracca who doesn’t want to be there. This is ugly.

“This is a complete dumpster fire at Melbourne right now.”