Experienced Bomber Brendon Goddard is preparing to discuss his future in depth with coach John Worsfold within the next fortnight.
Goddard is out of contract at the end of the season but has voiced his aspirations to play on should the club offer him a new deal.
The 33-year-old has played 331 senior games since his debut in 2003 and continues to provide important leadership for the side.
He ranks fourth at the club for disposals, averaging 23 per game this year at an impressive efficiency of 83.3 per cent, and says he has made it “pretty clear” that he wants to remain at the club.
“Woosha doesn’t give too much away, he’s pretty vanilla all the time – at good and bad times,” Goddard said on Thursday.
“We’ve had discussions and haven’t been too deep or anything like that. I’m not naive, I know the situation I’m in and the club’s in.
“We’ll sit down and have more of a formal discussion in the next week or two.”
Essendon’s season is at a crossroad with just three home and away games remaining, but Goddard said the team’s attitude won’t be swayed by the stakes at hand ahead of Friday night’s must win clash with St Kilda.
“We control what we can control and probably need a bit of help from a few other teams,” he said.
“All we can concentrate (on) are the things that we can control, albeit a cliche, but that’s the reality of the situation we’re in at the minute.
“(We need to) continue to try and perform, keep improving and think more about continual improvement rather than the win-loss ratio and what needs to happen.”
205 of Goddard’s senior games came for his upcoming opponent, and he admitted he has thought about meeting some former teammates in recent weeks.
“I’ve thought about it in the last few weeks and caught up with a few old Saints boys, but there’s only four or five guys still on the list that I’ve played with so there’s no real connection there.
“(I have) always still got that connection and affinity with the club (after) playing 10 years and 200 games for them.
“Their best is really good, so we’ll be looking to nullify that and obviously play our best and get the game more on our terms.”
The first bounce as the Bombers strive to keep the season alive is set for 7.50pm at Etihad Stadium this Friday.