ADELAIDE Football Club chief executive Steven Trigg is on the attack. If only the same theme oozed from his office to the football field.

Trigg at the weekend went into a radio booth at Subiaco Oval to take issue with the negativity that surrounds commentary on the Crows, both in the media (where the club is not short of fans nor ambassadors) and the supporter base.

“It’s all negative,” Trigg said in the lead-up to Adelaide’s away clash with Fremantle.

“But wherever I go it is really positive - and I work with people who are motivated; I am surrounded by positive people all the time.”

There is no doubt the Adelaide Football Club today is a victim of the high expectations heaped on the state’s biggest sporting team. And the rise of the other AFL team in town, Port Adelaide, has made the local scene tougher for the Crows, more so when there is a growing gap with on-field performances.

“The Adelaide Football Club is doing a lot of things really well,” Trigg says. “Membership numbers (are up), hits on the website (are up), crowds at Adelaide Oval (are up) ... but in the end you’ve got to win. And when you don’t you get harpooned.”

Trigg - and his club chairman Rob Chapman - have taken issue with The Advertiser running an AFL-sanctioned survey of almost 4000 Crows members that at the end of last season declared satisfaction among the membership base is at its lowest.

media_camera Adelaide players trudge off Patersons Stadium on Sunday.

“Old news” and “reflective of on-field results,” they say. But on-field results have not improved - and member frustration with the club remains evident, particularly among former players who are plotting their “takeover” of the board.

More concerning for Trigg and Chapman is how this confidential report was leaked from within the Adelaide Football Club. The era of the singing canaries is back. Clearly someone with the bubble at West Lakes is not so positive nor upbeat.

No football club - and very few individuals - enjoy searching analysis and criticism. But if Trigg feels there is a disparity between the internal vision of his football club and the external assessment, he should question the message that is being delivered from West Lakes.

Trigg could start with his coach Brenton Sanderson. On one hand he vows to build an attack that will be the envy of the AFL - and then he speaks of playing lockdown football with an ambition of scoring 10 goals.

Adelaide’s football DNA is to play entertaining, high-scoring football full of run and energy. It is a positive theme being lost by Sanderson’s repetitive message of negative, dour football.

Perhaps the reality is Adelaide does not have the players to be a challenger for a top-four ranking as it was in 2012. But that is a negative conclusion ...