Matthew Nicks deserves to keep coaching Adelaide next year for taking the club from "disarray" to the finals, a trusted assistant says.
Nicks' tenure reportedly hinges on beating the Western Bulldogs in Saturday night's elimination final at Adelaide Oval.
The Crows coach, in his seventh season, conceded mid-week he hasn't received any guarantee from club hierarchy about serving out the final year of his contract next season.
But his long-time assistant coach Scott Burns says Nicks "absolutely" deserves to continue.
"It's actually a real positive that we're talking about this now," Burns told reporters on Friday.
"Because if you go back to five or six years ago, where we were as a football club - even when Nicksy came in, you talk about the camp culture, you talk about the COVID year, wooden spoon year - the place was in disarray, talking politely.
"The last four seasons ... we're top-four for offence and defence, so it's been a massive turnaround.
"So the speculation is actually a credit to Nicksy with what he's been able to do over his time here.
"What we've done is raise expectations, so it's a good position to be in compared to where we were four years ago."
Burns said the speculation, which comes after Adelaide crashed out of last year's finals with consecutive home loss, wasn't a talking point inside the club.
"Nicksy summed it up pretty well: it's just part and parcel, it happens," he said.
"We've taken the journey now to be a consistent finals team, which is what we wanted to do. That's the first one ticked off.
"The next one is to obviously have success in the finals and hopefully that's a journey that's going to be pretty exciting over the next two or three years for Adelaide supporters."
Burns pointed to Nicks' winning rate of around 70 per cent in the past two years, also noting the initial finals record of modern-day coaching greats Damien Hardwick and Chris Fagan was also poor before they delivered multiple premierships.
"Once again, let's just rewind a little bit and go back to where we were four or five years ago," Burns said.
"There's a lot of clubs that would like to rebound as quickly as what we have ... but we've got to get it done in finals and that's the next challenge."
