Melbourne is confident that it could come to a deal with Geelong for the trade of Mitch Clark, with Demons football manager James Mahoney saying the clubs were "around about the same page".

And the club is also interested in recruiting players from Brisbane and Greater Western Sydney.

Clark, who retired at the start of this season because of depression, has declared that he feels strong enough to return to the football field and has nominated the Cats as his preferred club.

Mahoney told radio station SEN that the clubs were close to reaching an agreement.

"We both recognise that at this best Mitch is a very good player and he was arguably our best player during the period he played for us," Mahoney said.

"We also both understand the risks attached with it. He's only played 15 games in three years. We're around about the same page what that then looks like in terms of picks and players. That will work itself out in the next couple of days."

Mahoney also said the club had held discussions with both Brisbane defender Daniel Merrett and GWS youngster Sam Frost.

"The whole year we've been looking at the situation if James does leave the club. We need someone to come in and play a key position role, Daniel Merrett was one name that came up, Sam Frost was another name, so there's a number of guys out there that we've been talking to to potentially fill that role," Mahoney said.

"It's very early on in the negotiations, but we'd like to think we're well placed for both of them if they're the guys we require."

Mahoney said the Demons were looking to beef up their midfield.

"We're going into this trade period the same as we did last year. We've just got to continue to add talent to our list and we do that through all the different avenues, (that being) either through the draft, the trade period or free agency," Mahoney said.

"This year we still want to add some depth to our midfield. There's some good players at the top end of the draft who can help us with that and certainly we're looking for someone to run off half-back which is why we targeted Heritier Lumumba and some other guys to help us in key position roles."

He said he was confident of securing the disgruntled Lumumba, although "it would have been an easier deal to be done if Mitch had chosen Collingwood", which had been in the running for Clark.

"We're not to far away with Collingwood. I think that most people who have gone at his age have been around a second to third round draft pick so that's probably what we'll end up with," Mahoney said.