Coyne's absence from the side for the last three games has been blamed on a contract clause that would see the 30-year-old automatically re-signed at a higher wage for next season if he plays one more game this campaign.

With second-last Glory looking to rebuild following the most disappointing season in their A-League history, the club appears to be maximising the amount of money available in their salary cap in order to purchase new players.

Coyne doesn't appear to be in Ferguson's future plans and appears to be paying the price by being left out of the side at present despite being fit to play. It's a situation that's been attacked by the Professional Footballer's Association.

"A professional footballer has a legal right to work which is implied into his contract of employment and forms a fundamental part of it," said PFA chief Brendan Schwab in a statement on the association's website.

"To satisfy this legal obligation, clubs must act in good faith to their players and consider them for selection on merit."

But Ferguson has declared Coyne's absence has nothing to do with contracts and is purely down to poor form, despite the defender playing 23 of the 24 games prior to his exclusion.

"Jamie, I sort of left out because I felt like I wanted to go a different direction," said Ferguson.

"If you look at Jamie the last four or five games, certain goals have came in and certain things have happened from his side. That was the reason he's been left out."

"It was nothing to do with anything that Jamie's suggesting, it's just basically down to form and as I said, I'm taking a different direction and want to just try somebody else in those positions."

Although Ferguson refused to comment directly, it seems likely Coyne will join Aleks Vrteski, Michael Baird, Andrija Jukic and Andy Todd as the players who have already left the club since the season began.

However, this process of letting players go hasn't come without serious criticism over the treatment of Coyne and reigning club champion Todd.

Glory initially said 36-year-old Todd was released because the long gap between seasons meant the club could not commit to a new deal for the former Blackburn skipper.

But Ferguson said on Thursday he'd informed Todd he wasn't in the club's future plans after a campaign where he struggled with injuries, the coach saying there was no chance Todd would be looked at again even if there was room in the salary cap.

"Look Andy's moved on now, we've moved on," Ferguson said.

"As I said to Andy, I was going in a different direction again. I wanted to try and get younger players in there, probably a little bit more energy than Andy.

"This year he's been hampered with a few injuries and at 36, I just felt that it might be better if we moved on and try and get somebody else in and that's what we're doing.

"Andy's been top class, he's never once moaned about how he was treated or anything. He's always been professional and he's a lovely lad to have about the place, he was a pleasure to work with."