ADELAIDE captain Rory Sloane has been ruled out of Friday night's AFL Showdown against Port Adelaide.

Sloane has failed to recover from a groin injury that forced him to be substituted out of last week's loss to Collingwood. 

But in better news for the winless Crows, dual club champion Rory Laird will play his first premiership game this year after suffering a broken hand on the eve of the season.

"He (Laird) has done a fair bit (of ball-handling) over the last week," Crows coach Matthew Nicks said on Thursday.

"We're pretty confident he is going to come in and be okay as far as the hand goes, there's no issues around that."

Meanwhile, Adelaide powerbroker Mark Ricciuto's public spray of the winless club didn't come as a surprise to Nicks.

Ricciuto, Adelaide's only Brownlow medallist and long-time director, has slammed the Crows for their performances in consecutive losses this season.

"They can't kick, they can't handball, they can't kick at goal, they're giving away free kicks - they really can't do anything worse," Ricciuto told his radio employer Triple M.

Coach Nicks was unfazed by Ricciuto's blast.

"We're on the same page as to where we are at as a footy club," Nicks said on Thursday.

"And if you think we are not having those conversations, well, you're kidding yourself.

"The performance at the moment is not at the level.

"It's not only our execution by hand and foot, it's playing our roles."

Nicks dismissed suggestions Ricciuto's criticism had heaped more pressure on the club.

"There's pressure coming from everywhere," he said.

"We get pressure from opposition on a game day, there's pressure on young guys coming in and playing their debut.

"That's the game we play. If you can't handle pressure then you're in the wrong caper."

The Crows claimed their first wooden spoon in 2020 - Nicks' first season in charge - and finished 15th last year.

Nicks said Adelaide's formlines were a byproduct of having the youngest list in the league.

"We are an extremely young group," he said.

"And what can happen in pressure situations is you go away from what you do and that snowballs into missing handballs, which we are doing at the moment, missing kicks.

"We are not shying away from our performance and where it's at at the moment ... we need to be better and we will be."