‘Losing faith': Senior players rumour swirls as Bombers reach crisis point
And a report claims senior players at the Bombers are 'losing faith' in the club's high performance team, to the extent that players could be poached by rival clubs.
Brad Scott's side has been badly affected by a mounting injury toll in 2025 including Darcy Parish, Kyle Langford and Mason Redman suffering fresh soft tissue setbacks at a training session over the club's mid-season bye.
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Meanwhile Zach Reid re-injured his hamstring last week and is set for season-ending surgery and Caldwell also requires a procedure for a syndesmosis issue that puts the rest of the gun midfielder's campaign in doubt.
It comes as the likes of Ben McKay, Sam Draper, Jordan Ridley, Nick Bryan, Harrison Jones, Matt Guelfi, Nik Cox and Xavier Duursma have endured long-term injuries throughout this season.
Seven's Mitch Cleary revealed on Agenda Setters on Monday night 'a number of players have led concerns' off the back of the Bombers' Saturday training session a fortnight ago when Parish, Langford and Redman got hurt.
Cleary said the grim situation has caused frustration to the point that it could lead to players leaving the club.
'It's my understanding that if a club was to come for a player like Kyle Langford, who has two years left on a lucrative contract at the age of 28, he would look twice at an offer from a rival club, given the frustration that has been stemming off the back of this and the repeat soft tissue injuries they've picked up,' Cleary reported.
'This is not a recent thing. This has been going for some time, but it really has ramped up since that Saturday session two weeks ago.'
It comes as Essendon legend Matthew Lloyd poured more fuel on burning rumours surrounding the future of captain Zach Merrett.
Despite being contracted at Essendon until the end of the 2027 season, Merrett has been linked with trades in recent months.
Lloyd told Nine's Footy Classified on Monday night: 'No one would begrudge him (leaving).
'Zach will win his sixth best and fairest this year and he will have achieved absolutely everything you can at Essendon Football Club, bar playing in a winning final.
'That's what you play footy for … once your days are over all you remember is those big finals you played in, nothing else. That's what he'll never, ever have that memory of.'
He said Essendon would only consider potential trades if Merrett told officials he didn't want to remain with the club.
It comes as there could be changes coming to the club's high performance team as chief executive Craig Vozzo prepares to hand in findings from a deep dive into its injury woes.
Cleary added that there's been 'conjecture' around the nature of the club's training session during its bye.
'There's been conjecture on whether this session was planned or not. I've spoken to the club tonight and they're adamant that this was always in the diary for them to come back from the bye on Friday, have a light session, then train fully on Saturday,' he said.
'But the rehab guys have been at the club all week. They didn't have a bye week as such. So the club is standing by the fact this has been in the diary for some time. But there has been conjecture from some parts around how hard and how much of this was planned.'
Appearing on Fox Footy's AFL 360 on Monday night, Essendon coach Brad Scott said the silver lining of the injuries was that the club could expose more talent that wouldn't have necessarily otherwise gotten a chance.
'It's like everything in life, you've got a choice how you respond to whatever situation you're in. You can mope and say: 'Poor us, poor me and my job is too hard'. Or you can get on with the job and look at the positives,' Scott said.
'The positives for us are Luamon Lual, Angus Clarke and Zak Johnston come in. All the players who have had opportunity wouldn't have had that opportunity without these injuries.
'We genuinely think we've found some players who are going to improve our team short, medium and long term.
'The aim is to keep putting a team on the park every weekend capable of getting the job done and we haven't shied away from that. There are no excuses for performances on the weekend for who's not there.
'We're still fielding 23 fit players.'
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