Carlton great Brendon Fevola thinks Blues skipper Marc Murphy should leave the club at season's end when he becomes a free agent, a move he says would benefit both parties.
“I love the Blues, I bleed Blue but I’ll speak as a media person. I think he should leave,” Fevola told The Footy Show.
“I think the club is not going to be anywhere in the next 3-4 years, so get the young kids to go up, get another bloke in charge (as captain). Let him (Murphy) go off and do whatever he wants.
“For the club I think it’s better to get draft picks to get better in a couple of years.”
Murphy comes out of contract at season's end and could command a contract of around $500,000 a season, a price that the rebuilding Blues may not wish to pay for a bloke who turns 31 later this year.
Carlton is also trying to lock down emerging star Patrick Cripps, who might get paid a seven-figure salary, while trying to entice other free agents to come to the struggling club. It is a balancing act that means Carlton might not be able to afford to pay their captain his real worth and may lead to him looking elsewhere.
Geelong is one club whose name has been thrown up as a possible destination for Murphy in 2019 should he wish to leave the Blues, who could provide the champion midfielder a shot at winning a premiership.
If Murphy were to take a pay cut, it would make sense that he would do so to chase success, rather than play out his remaining years on a team that will feature on the bottom end of the ladder.
Blues midfielder Dale Thomas said Murphy is faced with a tough decision, as he was when he left Collingwood in 2013 as a free agent.
“It’s such a tough decision to make, he’s captain of the footy club, my situation I would imagine was a fair bit different to Marc’s,” Thomas told SEN.
“In terms of how my body was going on at the time and the reasons about why I left were probably not spoken about as well.
"It is a tough decision that Marc is obviously going to get scrutinised about, and get asked about, but he has been a fantastic leader of the footy club.
“And if he can play out for another few seasons, hopefully these younger guys coming through can start to really improve and he can reap the rewards of that success and the hard work he has done with it.
“At the end of the day you play footy to win games of footy and have some success and Marc’s been a terrific player.
“But he would be the first to admit he would really like that success.
“Hopefully that is at the Blues and hopefully he doesn’t have to go looking elsewhere, but that’s the decision he will tell you about when the decision needs to be made.”
The former number one draft pick has played 240 games for Carlton, who currently sit dead last on the ladder.
Murphy is averaging 26 disposals, and six tackle from his four games for Carlton this season, but is set for a stint on the sidelines with a nagging foot injury.
