Former Crow Bryce Gibbs has urged Matt Crouch to seek a trade away from the Crows following his second axing this season.
When the team sheets were released on Thursday, Matthew Nicks shocked fans again by dropping Crouch, despite the midfielder gathering 31 touches last week against Gold Coast.
Crouch was dropped ahead of Round 8 earlier this year and then recalled ahead of Round 11 before his second omission this year.
Gibbs, who played 37 games for Adelaide after being traded from Carlton, said the situation was similar to his own a few years back.
“Matt Crouch dropped again, and it gives me a bit of the shivers, a bit of déjà vu because it seems similar to what I went through a couple of years ago,” he told Saturdays in SA.
“Obviously not knowing the ins and outs of their conversations that he’d be having with Nicksy (Nicks) and the club, but it smells from my point of view and it seems like he’s on the outer, and once you’re on the outer, it’s very hard to get back in favour.
“So Matt Crouch has got a few decisions to make for the rest of the year I think.
“He’s similar to a lot of the players they’ve got running through there.(Rory) Laird, a high possession (player), but I think he had 30 handballs last week, (Sam) Berry is just that sort of player, not explosive but plods along and gets the ball.
“So is he (Crouch) is a similar type of player to all those guys in there.”
Crouch had 36 and 35 possessions in the SANFL earlier this year, and Gibbs believes even good form won’t see the 27-year-old return to the senior side.
“I think he’s tremendously frustrated and so be it, but I don’t know what you do (with him),” he added.
“He’s never been a high metres gained player anyway, but if he goes back and has 30 in the SANFL, I don’t think that’s really going to help him to be honest.”
It appears that Crouch has fallen down the pecking order at the Crows, however he signed a two-year contract extension just last summer.
Despite that, Gibbs called on the Crow to seek a trade, suggesting he’s still got plenty of good footy ahead of him.
“It’s either going one of two ways: they’re saying to him to keep working on a few things and I think Nicksy has said it’s his ball use out of the stoppage and getting a bit more uncontested ball, maybe going forward with the ball more,” Gibbs stated.
“Or they’re saying to him, ‘we’re going to play the kids’. That’s the line I got thrown… It started off saying, ‘we want to get you back in your side and playing the best footy’, but within a couple of weeks that turned to, ‘we're actually going to start playing some kids’.
“I actually got both thrown at me within three weeks which was not ideal for me.
“He’s only 27… he’s still got a lot of good footy in him.
“If I was Matt Crouch, he signed a two-year deal in the summer just gone (but) he’s been dropped twice, I would be looking to get out if I was Matt Crouch.
“He’s obviously not a part of this rebuild that they’re going on about.”
Crouch has averaged 27.3 disposals, 4.1 clearances and 2.3 inside 50s per game in his ten AFL appearances in 2022.