Christian Petracca’s former Melbourne teammate Jordan Lewis says the Demons should trade him if the talk is true

Former Demon Jordan Lewis says Melbourne is hurting itself from the inside, insisting too many people are ‘running their own agendas’ – and that no player is bigger than the club.

Melbourne should trade Christian Petracca if he has expressed a view inside the club that he wants a trade, according to his former Demons teammate Jordan Lewis.

It comes as Footy Classified’s Matthew Lloyd declared Petracca’s coach Simon Goodwin was “on borrowed time” if there was not a swift turnaround in the club’s fortunes in the next 12 months.

Lewis said he had been surprised by some of the discussion around Melbourne in recent days, insisting some within the club had been “running their own agendas” which was detrimental to the club’s internal operations.

It follows bombshell revelations that Petracca – who has a contract with the Demons until the end of 2029 – was weighing up his future with the club after a challenging past few months.

Christian Petracca in full flight this year. Picture: Michael Klein

“(At) clubs with good cultures, this stuff happens behind closed doors and it doesn’t necessarily make it to the public (arena),” Lewis said on Fox Footy.

“So it seems like there’s people and players in there (Melbourne) who are running their own agenda, and in my opinion, that’s not the right way to go about it.

“I think there is a right way to go about it and a wrong way to go about it, I think, sometimes when a player takes things into their own hands.

“The grass is not always greener … this might fold into the long-term deals that everyone wants, and now (some players are) opting out of these long-term deals.

“Do we just go back to two to three year deals?”

Lewis said the experience of his Hawthorn teammate Lance Franklin moving to Sydney at the end of 2013 showed why clubs should move on those players who want out, no matter how good they are.

And with former Melbourne teammate Jordan Lewis. Picture: Matt Goodrope

“We had Lance Franklin leave at the end of 2013 … (he was) the best player in the competition,” Lewis said.

“There is no one player who is bigger than their organisation ... my opinion has always been that if a player doesn’t want to be there, they (the club) are better off elsewhere.

“There is nothing worse than a player asking for or requesting a trade and it doesn’t happen, and (having them) coming back into an environment when all they are thinking about is the next opportunity to get out.”

Goodwin is contracted until the end of 2026, but Lloyd said on Channel Nine that he needed to get the Demons back into the finals next season or run the risk of being replaced.

“They are in no man’s land right now,” Lloyd said of the Demons list.

Originally published as Christian Petracca’s former Melbourne teammate Jordan Lewis says the Demons should trade him if the talk is true