Thompson wants Ablett back at Cats in AFL

Former Geelong coach Mark Thompson wants Gary Ablett back at the Cats, saying the AFL star should never have left.

Thompson added Gold Coast should be giving the out-of-sorts midfielder better support, after Ablett carried the Suns in their first couple of years in the league.

Ablett requested a shock trade back to Geelong late last year, which the Suns predictably knocked back.

A below-par game last weekend in the loss to the Giants has fuelled raging speculation about where Ablett will be next year.

"Geelong would always need an Ablett, I reckon," Thompson told Fox Footy.

"It would be a good story if he went back ... he should go back, it would be great to see.

"He shouldn't have gone in the first place.

"You'd buy something pretty special - he's a special player."

Thompson added that Ablett's teammates should be doing more to help the former Suns captain.

"At some point his teammates and his club have got to stand up and help him ... he can't do it on his own," Thompson said.

"I thought he carried the club for the first couple of years.

"Then when he probably needs help, struggling through motivation, geez some of those teammates should stand up better than they have."

Thompson and Ablett had a fraught relationship at Geelong in 2010 before the two-time premiership player confirmed he would join Gold Coast and the coach also left the Cats.

"Him and I were both a disruption," Thompson said.

The former coach added that Ablett, like his brother and their famous father, needed to be treated carefully as AFL players.

"Just getting them to do some things they didn't want to do was a difficult task for the Ablett family," he said.

"Nathan was no different and Gary Snr was no different either.

"You have to convince Gary to want to do it and there's no point doing it through the media, there's no point at all, because he'll just turn his nose up to it."

Earlier on Wednesday, Geelong coach Chris Scott was coy when asked about the speculation surrounding Ablett and Gold Coast.

Scott said it was up to the Suns to handle the issue.