Collingwood star midfielder Scott Pendlebury is determined not to let the impending saga surrounding his future get in the way of his football.
The 2009 Norm Smith Medallist surprised many when in May he only signed a one-year deal, keeping him at the club until the end of the next season.
That leaves him as a prime target for Greater Western Sydney, who are allowed to sign uncontracted players next year.
A similar situation to Tom Scully's departure at Melbourne and Gary Ablett from Geelong last year looks on the cards, but Pendlebury was already turning out the cliches on Tuesday as he said he just wants to concentrate on his footy.
"Haven't really thought about it to be honest," he said.
"If it goes that way you've got to deal with it as a player and I suppose if it happens it's happens but I'm not going to let it distract my main goal, which is my football."
"It's up to my management and my football club to work something out and my focus now is up until the Christmas break of getting a really solid pre-season in because I'm not going to worry about that sort of stuff."
"It all can change pretty quickly if I don't get a kick this year."
Collingwood have undergone wholesale changes in their coaching department since the Grand Final loss to Geelong with the most significant being former champion Nathan Buckley taking over from Mick Malthouse.
But the Magpies have also lured other high-profile recruits with Rodney Eade and Robert Harvey joining the club, along with Ben Hart and Mitch Hahn.
Pendlebury said it was a surprise seeing so many fresh faces when he returned from his break and is looking forward to getting back into pre-season training.
"It's a little bit different, you walk in and Rocket's there and Bucks and Robert Harvey, a few new assistant coaches, Mitch Hahn, Ben Hart, all those sort of new faces so it's almost like a fresh start," he said.
"It's going to be different but exciting, we've got a really young coaching group, they're only five, six, seven years out of the game so they're still up to speed with it all."
"Any time a new coach comes in there's going to be a few changes and no doubt that will be the same with Bucks and all the new coaches will bring new ideas and it's great for the playing group to learn off guys like Robert Harvey."
Pendlebury admitted the first two weeks after the Grand Final loss were hard to deal with and he hopes to use the disappointment as a motivating factor heading into next year.
"We can't get it back, we've got to move on. We don't want to be stewing over the loss last year too much because we've got a whole new campaign to start," he said.
"We've got a whole new coaching staff, a lot of new faces, so they obviously weren't a part of it last year."