{"id":739088,"date":"2026-06-16T00:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T00:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739088\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T00:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T00:53:14","slug":"afl-news-2026-essendon-bombers-matthew-lloyd-trade-zach-merrett-disgruntled-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739088\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL News 2026: Essendon Bombers Matthew Lloyd trade Zach merrett disgruntled list"},"content":{"rendered":"

With growing speculation that a number of senior Essendon<\/a> players could seek trades at the end of the season, Matthew Lloyd<\/a> believes the club should move on from the lot of them.<\/p>\n

Last year, Zach Merrett<\/a> requested a trade to Hawthorn<\/a> and Jordan Ridley to Brisbane<\/a>. Both were denied moves, but both seem likely to push their way out once again.<\/p>\n

\"Could<\/p>\n

Could these three Bombers be elsewhere in 2027?\u00a0Footy Classified<\/p>\n

Midfielder Darcy Parish also explored the trade space last year, but couldn\u2019t find a taker.<\/p>\n

Nine reporter Sam McClure has revealed Parish did not attend their last two games while missing with injury, though apparently that is not a new behaviour.<\/p>\n

However, McClure is reporting that there is a \u201clevel of discontent\u201d between senior Essendon players and the club, following the sacking of coach Brad Scott<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Dons have won just one game in over 12 months at this point.<\/p>\n

Lloyd, despite backing the club\u2019s call to keep Merrett and Ridley last year, now believes it\u2019s time for a clean out of anyone who no longer wants to be at Tullamarine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the club did the right thing last year saying \u2018no we\u2019re going to keep them\u2019, but once they come around the second time, it\u2019s like the Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca one at Melbourne, you are so much better without these guys in your football club,\u201d Lloyd told Nine\u2019s Footy Classified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever becomes the new coach, they need to be really aggressive and be strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody who is getting around the club who doesn\u2019t want to be there, yes the club has to fix itself and get itself right and these players are probably entitled to be disgruntled with what\u2019s going on, but once the new coach comes in, there\u2019s going to be a lot of change of staff, anybody who doesn\u2019t want to be there, move them on.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet them out of there, that\u2019s my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With growing speculation that a number of senior Essendon players could seek trades at the end of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-739088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}