Who Goes? McCarthy. Confimred.

[P!ssed Off]

Have to say I was feeling positive about the sale when the fee was being touted as £4 million+.
SSN's announced it as close to £2 million earlier. I'm not feeling very positive about that figure.
Others claim £3 million which is still not too much to celebrate.

Agreed with Sandman, he'll never be the top, top keeper like people predicted 12 months ago.
His distribution might be acceptable for your QPR's, West Ham's and Stoke's, but nobody big is going to spunk proper money on him. For that reason the add-ons being touted about are nowhere near as valuable as many claim.

[kwik-silva]

I thought a goalkeeper's best years are 32/33/34, in which case Feds still has more to offer. Are there any actual signs of him declining, or are people just feeling particularly doomongery today.

[Libertine]

Aside from the curious, to me, wording used to announce the transfer I thought the transfer itself was an ok piece of business. At this late stage of his contract a £2-£4 fee isn't a bad fee to get. I think we could have got much more for him if we moved him last season (and it was fairly obvious even then he would be going at some point in the near future) so I think we cost ourselves some money. I don't know why we waited to do it (the ownership shambles maybe?), but for a player out of contract at the end of the season it wasn't a bad bit of business.

[Royal Ginger]

I thought a goalkeeper's best years are 32/33/34, in which case Feds still has more to offer. Are there any actual signs of him declining, or are people just feeling particularly doomongery today.

Don't worry, one big game any everyone will be saying that he's the best keeper the league has ever seen again.

[rfc58]

I hope we get to use the cash to bring in players who will make a real difference to the team, not a few more who aren't any better than we've already got, who just add to the wage bill.

[Hoop Blah]

Like every club our players will leave to further their careers and we'll need to sell players to balance the books at times.

That's life for most clubs and anyone not grasping that is living in a bit of a dream world.

Like the previous sales this move represents good business for the club and the player. I don't think it means there's any problems behind the scenes (although there may well be some of course), it's just the reality of football.

[paddy20]

Like every club our players will leave to further their careers and we'll need to sell players to balance the books at times.

That's life for most clubs and anyone not grasping that is living in a bit of a dream world.

Like the previous sales this move represents good business for the club and the player. I don't think it means there's any problems behind the scenes (although there may well be some of course), it's just the reality of football.

How short sighted. Good Luck to Mac. I think he will become a top premiership keeper.

[72 bus]

How short sighted. Good Luck to Mac. I think he will become a top premiership keeper.

Short sighted ? He was in the last year of his contract and wanted to move.
What else could the club have done, players move on all the time, a club cannot force anyone to stay if they want out

[Mr Angry]

He was never likely to renew his contract and was always destined for a PL club; the only surprise is that someone better than QPR didn't come in for him. Maybe the bigger clubs looked at him and saw something they didn't like? Being at QPR means that there is a very real chance he will be a Championship player again in a season.....

[Royal Rother]

How short sighted. Good Luck to Mac. I think he will become a top premiership keeper.

Short sighted ? He was in the last year of his contract and wanted to move.
What else could the club have done....?

Oh come on. The club could have offered him a big new contract so that when the accounts are released paddy20 and others could moan about how ridiculously high our wages are and how extraordinarily badly run the club is....

[PieEater]

I've no problem with him leaving, just a bit gutted he's gone to QPR. There's something that irks me about them cherry picking our best talent given the ridiculous way they are run whilst we try carefully to balance the books. They could be the next Portsmouth.

[winchester_royal]

Like every club our players will leave to further their careers and we'll need to sell players to balance the books at times.

That's life for most clubs and anyone not grasping that is living in a bit of a dream world.

Like the previous sales this move represents good business for the club and the player. I don't think it means there's any problems behind the scenes (although there may well be some of course), it's just the reality of football.

Yep, and the fact that we're (supposedly) going to be active in the last couple of days of the window further supports this. At the end of the day FFP means we have to bring money in to spend, and I imagine part of the reasoning behind this sale is that we have plenty of good keepers and the money would be better spent strengthening other areas rather than keeping AMc.

[Royal Rother]

Indeed - the FFP implications are spot on.

The club will already know within a million or 2 what next year's accounts will look like with existing players and contracts, and simply have to manage the finances to ensure we have no fines under FFP.

If we need to cut the wages by a few million + and bring in some money on player trading and a club comes in for McCarthy but not Federici what are we supposed to do...?

Same thing applies with McAnuff, Leigertwood & Co - wages had to be cut so the players at the end of their contracts would have to go, no matter how loyal they had been and how useful they might have proved to be in the current season.

But you can bet the people moaning about the hugely excessive wages were the self-same ones moaning about those players being released.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

At this late stage of his contract a £2-£4 fee isn't a bad fee to get.

Fcuk me we must be hard up

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Like every club our players will leave to further their careers and we'll need to sell players to balance the books at times.

That's life for most clubs and anyone not grasping that is living in a bit of a dream world.

Like the previous sales this move represents good business for the club and the player. I don't think it means there's any problems behind the scenes (although there may well be some of course), it's just the reality of football.

How short sighted. Good Luck to Mac. I think he will become a top premiership keeper.

+ 1 Absolutely

He IS going to be a top top keeper and I'm stunned people are saying otherwise. The amount of points we gained because of his world class saves over the last 2 seasons - far far too many games to list.

I'm sure we'll all be really proud when he starts for England in a few years because I firmly believe he'll be England no 1.

Best bit of business QPR have done. It won't be long before Redknapp bins off Green IMO.

[Zana Badawi]

Oh come on. The club could have offered him a big new contract so that when the accounts are released paddy20 and others could moan about how ridiculously high our wages are and how extraordinarily badly run the club is....

Its what we did for Pearce and HRK. Spent quite some time over it as well.

Its not only that McCarthy has gone but that we've got ourselves into a position that we had to accept under the going rate for him. There are two reasons for that.
1. We've let his contract run out
2. His loss of form from the middle to the end of last year.

So, somehow, in the period of between half a season and a season we have, as a club, seem McCarthy change from one of the most exciting goalkeeping prospects we've ever seen at the club, to one we appear to be congratulating ourselves for offloading him (almost sideways) to one of the more tinpot of the Premiership clubs for a reduced fee.

There are so many scenarios where this has come about because of mismanagement that we have to at least question it.

The fact that we have gone back to a keeper that wasn't good enough to get in the squad for a year and a half is about as clear cut a critique of how we've gone backwards during NA's reign as there exists. Sure we have to keep money coming in in the modern football world, but somebody has ballsed up here.

[Libertine]

At this late stage of his contract a £2-£4 fee isn't a bad fee to get.

Fcuk me we must be hard up

Hmmmmmm, a case of the missing M's. Can I just borrow a couple from your user name?

[Royal Rother]

The fact that we have gone back to a keeper that wasn't good enough to get in the squad for a year and a half is about as clear cut a critique of how we've gone backwards during NA's reign as there exists.

Sure we have to keep money coming in in the modern football world, but somebody has ballsed up here.

Was he not in the squad?

I think you are being ridiculously dismissive of Federici there. To me, he has shown himself to be nearly as good as McCarthy and that is no bad thing. And I don't see this as a balls up by the club. One of them had to go and it was always going to be the one for whom we received an offer, which was always likely to be McCarthy.

We are superb with 'keepers and if McCarthy hasn't quite kicked on in the last year or so, it's pretty likely it's as a result of McCarthy himself going through something (relegation? thwarted ambition? reduced motivation?) rather than directly actions of the club itself.

As a slight aside, is there any club in the country as prolific at producing professional quality 'keepers as Reading?

[Ian Royal]

Not upset about McCarthy leaving despite him being a youth product and our best keeper. Federici will do fine and we couldn't sustain both, McCarthy was realistically always the one who'd go if anyone did because he's better and going to be more in demand.

I am pissed off he's gone to Saggy 'Arry and his Queens Park Mercenary Scumbag Rangers.

He's now dead to me. Especially after seeing that horrendous tank he's chosen to drive.

[RoyallyFcuked]

Shame we couldn't keep McCarthy, probably the best ever talent to come from our academy. I guess it was inevitable that he would go though. It became especially obvious to me as soon as he wasn't in the starting 11 this season. Quality keeper needs and deserves to be playing PL football for his career, which I still think could go far. Shot stopping he really is second to none, just needs to improve his distribution and he could well be a future England No1.

Anyway, Federici is a more than adequate replacement as apart the odd blunder, has been very good for us.
Good luck for the future Alex, hope to see you in goal for the three lions one day and at a better club than fake hoops!