COACH Paul Roos says out-of-contract high-flyer Jeremy Howe is very much “a required player and we certainly want him to play” for the club next year.

Although Roos said he didn’t get involved in player contracts, unless necessary, he was adamant the defender/forward was a key part of Melbourne’s plans.

“I don’t get heavily involved with that unless I have to, but we’d like him to finish off the year well and stay at Melbourne,” he said.

“Unless I’m asked to or if there is a reason to [get involved, then] sometimes I’ll talk to a player briefly about it.

“But I trust [manager of player personnel] Todd Viney and [manager of football operations] Josh Mahoney working with the managers. What you’re relying on is the players giving the managers the correct feedback and that’s what we rely on.

“We want our players to play and we want them to play well, and we want the player to give the manager correct feedback. If he does that then everything normally turns out pretty well.”

Meanwhile, Roos said the story published in the Herald Sun on Wednesday about a heated conversation between AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick and former Sydney Swans chairman Richard Colless was “interesting”.

“It’s obviously quite an explosive discussion they had,” he said.

“What comes of it, we’ll wait and see.

“It does sound like [an abusive phone call]. It’s certainly not the way I talk to people, but everyone’s really different and I think it would've shocked a lot of people this morning waking up and choking on their corn flakes.”