Jared Polec and Shaun Higgins look set to depart North Melbourne

He’s one of the highest paid players in the league, but after a season from hell the club that splashed the cash doesn’t even want him.

Polec could find himself with a new team for next season.

North Melbourne are looking set to be a completely different side by the time the 2021 AFL season rolls around.

After telling star forward Ben Brown his time at the club had run its course, the Kangaroos are likely to also offload to star midfielders.

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Following a dismal 2020 season that saw them finish with only three wins, the club is moving ahead with an overhaul of the playing list.

The club have so far culled 11 players from the list and became the talk of the footy world on Wednesday when news of Brown’s imminent departure came to light.

But now it has emerged two of the club’s midfielders have reportedly been told to consider a future away from the club.

North lured Jared Polec to the club at the end of 2019 on a monstrous five-year deal worth a reported $3.5 million.

Polec endured a tumultuous season and was even dropped from the team over his form slump and now it appears he’s completely fallen out of favour with the club.

With three years left to run on his lucrative contract, offloading him won’t be an easy task. But a suitor for his services has reportedly emerged.

Channel 7’s Tom Browne reports Melbourne is a possible landing spot following the success they had in 2020 with wingman Ed Langdon.

Melbourne great Garry Lyon believes there are only a few acceptable circumstances if his old club was to try and land Polec and warned of potential bad habits within his game.

“There’s a couple of parts to this,” Lyon said on SEN Breakfast.

“For the way he plays his football, yes. Ticks boxes that Melbourne need.

“But then you go, OK, not at anywhere near the price. So you wouldn’t pay anywhere near the price and you wouldn’t be giving up early draft picks.

“You’d look at him on your terms.

Polec and Higgins could be at new homes in 2021.

“There is some disconnect going on in terms of – whether it’s instruction, inability to carry out instruction or unwillingness to carry out instruction,” Lyon said on Thursday.

“Whether he’s a bad … I don’t want to cast aspersions but there is a knock on Jared.

“Otherwise he’d still be (wanted) at North Melbourne and that is the thing you’d have to contemplate if you were thinking about taking him on.

“You’d do your homework, you’d do your due diligence, you’d ask that many questions as to why.

“Most people suggest that it goes back to (when) he was asked to tag Patty Cripps, wouldn’t do it, didn’t want to do it, cracked it because he was asked to do it.

“And from that point on the relationship became very strained between the two of them, club and player.

“Is that enough to ward off any others suitors? You have to do your homework.”

Along with Polec, club veteran Shaun Higgins has been given the green light to seek out a new home.

Higgins, 32, is also under contract with North Melbourne, but is keen to play on further and will seek a longer deal elsewhere.

Geelong and St Kilda have emerged as the early frontrunners in the race to land the classy onballer. Geelong tried to lure him away at the end of the 2019 season and will again try to land him to play him alongside Patrick Dangerfield.