Essendon great Matthew Lloyd believes Collingwood should consider trading Jordan De Goey after his inconsistent start to the season amid the club's on-field struggles.
After re-signing on a short term deal understood to be in the ballpark of $800,000 per season, De Goey has been held goalless in four out of his first nine games of the year.
MORE: Misfiring De Goey under fire after slow start
It has been a steady fall from grace for De Goey, who looked to be on the cusp of stardom in 2018 when he kicked 48 goals as Collingwood came within a kick of winning the premiership.
However, the 25-year-old has failed to take the next step after that breakout season, with his goals tally falling in the three seasons since.
With Collingwood set to embark on a rebuild over the next few seasons, Lloyd said the club should consider moving De Goey on in order to receive some draft capital.
"My belief is that if you don't believe Jordan is ever going to be the professional footballer that the champions are, yeah I'd move him on," he told Nine's Footy Classified.
"I don't see a (Marcus) Bontempelli, a (Christian) Petracca, that type of attitude in the way he prepares or just by watching how he performs, so I would (trade him) at the right price."
Despite a fire sale at the trade period, The Age's AFL reporter Sam McClure suggested that Collingwood's salary cap is still relatively tight and that moving De Goey could prove beneficial in that aspect.
"They had to go through such a major re-structure with their cap last year and then you've got the reduction in the TPP that hit every club, so I think there's still a bit of a squeeze at Collingwood," he told Footy Classified.
"The fact of the matter is, if they're rebuilding, if a club came to them and gave a good offer for a man on big money that at the moment is underperforming, they would have to look at it. There's no other way."
Also complicating matters for Collingwood is the fact that the club requires extra picks in order to match a bid for boom recruit Nick Daicos in this year's national draft.
Daicos, whose father played for Collingwood, is widely regarded as the best player in his class and the Magpies could be forced to match a bid for him with the first pick, similar to how the Bulldogs had to match Adelaide's bid for Jamarra Ugle-Hagan last year.
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