McCarthy in the England Squad!

[TBM]

Exactly - considering Butland only went for £3.3m i reckon £5m will get McCarthy

[Colin Cheeselog]

Sad to see him go BUT i'd rather he be the player we lose to fill the black hole than any other - as Fedders is more than decent enough in the Championship

Can't believe he's gone already. Who have we signed to replace him? I wonder what our next manager will think of that replacement, he'll probably look to move him on and bring in a replacement.

[P!ssed Off]

Sad to see him go BUT i'd rather he be the player we lose to fill the black hole than any other - as Fedders is more than decent enough in the Championship

You mean Flapperici and his bag of mistakes?

It's not necessary to criticise Federici, in order to praise McCarthy.
Federici was an excellent keeper last year. This year he made large mistakes in a few games that cost us a few points, but there were many more games than this where Federici was the only one on the pitch awake and single-handedly kept the score from double figures.

McCarthy is better than Federici, imo, but this does not mean that Federici is not a very good keeper.

[Wimb]

Just as an addendum to the "Academy graduate having greater affinity to the club" idea, you can be sure he'll have been watching the contract situation with fellow Academy graduate and good mate Alex Pearce with great interest ......

Yeah, he can watch Pearce's career go down the toilet.
Chucking away a long time career at the club where he was on the trajectory to captaincy and had already gained player of the season and the fans backing, in order to become 5th choice centre back at Liverpool, playing 5 games a season.

+1

lol the same club that has dropped him repeatedly because he wanted to keep his options open? The same club where Brian McDermott was happy to drop him for me, me, me Mills and a loanee in Zurab? The same club that stripped him of the vice-captaincy after Brendan left?

Personally I'd be sticking two fingers up at the club for treating me that way and would back myself to try and break into a Premier League side on the back of a good 2011/12 and respectable performances in most of his PL appearances.

So what if he isn't immediately first choice at Liverpool? At the very worst he'll end up back in the Championship, with a much bigger pay packet and the experience of playing for one of the biggest sides in the country. I think that's far more preferable to this season where he had to sit back and watch Kaspars Gorkss get picked ahead of him for a team relegated with less than 30 points.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

100% catch success rate according to opta. Impressive.

[URZZZZZ]

100% catch success rate according to opta. Impressive.

And a 77% shot to save ratio, both of which are better than hart. On the other hand hart hart has played 30 odd matches comes to about 12 by Alex

[maffff]

http://m.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/m ... nd-reading

This is an excellent article to be fair..

[Ian Royal]

http://m.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/may/17/alex-mccarthy-england-reading

This is an excellent article to be fair..

Very good article and the quotes from Alex are about as positive for us as they could be.

[P!ssed Off]

Yeah, he can watch Pearce's career go down the toilet.
Chucking away a long time career at the club where he was on the trajectory to captaincy and had already gained player of the season and the fans backing, in order to become 5th choice centre back at Liverpool, playing 5 games a season.

+1

lol the same club that has dropped him repeatedly because he wanted to keep his options open? The same club where Brian McDermott was happy to drop him for me, me, me Mills and a loanee in Zurab? The same club that stripped him of the vice-captaincy after Brendan left?

Personally I'd be sticking two fingers up at the club for treating me that way and would back myself to try and break into a Premier League side on the back of a good 2011/12 and respectable performances in most of his PL appearances.

So what if he isn't immediately first choice at Liverpool? At the very worst he'll end up back in the Championship, with a much bigger pay packet and the experience of playing for one of the biggest sides in the country. I think that's far more preferable to this season where he had to sit back and watch Kaspars Gorkss get picked ahead of him for a team relegated with less than 30 points.

He had no intention of signing a new contract, and was just stringing us along all season.
His performances this season were not great, terrible compared to last season, and not the performances that would get him the massive wage increase he wanted.
He probably should have had more games in previous seasons, but only playing half the games at the age of 21 is not a good reason to be massively upset. He was stripped of the vice-captaincy because he wasn't regular first team.

The club and Pearce, through this ridiculous contract situation, have let a lot of fans down. We've lost a homegrown player, much loved by the fans, who I'm 99% sure would have gone on to captain the side, and we've lost him on a FREE.

Losing the future captain on a free makes me oxf*rd angry, much more so than selling a talented goalkeeper for ~£8 million does.

[sandman]

McD didn't drop Pearce for Mills in the play off season. Pearce got Injured and Khizanishvili came in for him and when Pearce eventually got fit we were in our best form of the season so Pearce couldn't get back in. He was not dropped.

[Wimb]

McD didn't drop Pearce for Mills in the play off season. Pearce got Injured and Khizanishvili came in for him and when Pearce eventually got fit we were in our best form of the season so Pearce couldn't get back in. He was not dropped.

He was dropped in the first season for Zurab though, and Federici was recalled when McCarthy was in good form during the play-off season, as was Griffin for Cummings. Take your point but he was still made third choice in favour of a loanee.

He had no intention of signing a new contract, and was just stringing us along all season.
His performances this season were not great, terrible compared to last season, and not the performances that would get him the massive wage increase he wanted.
He probably should have had more games in previous seasons, but only playing half the games at the age of 21 is not a good reason to be massively upset. He was stripped of the vice-captaincy because he wasn't regular first team.

The club and Pearce, through this ridiculous contract situation, have let a lot of fans down. We've lost a homegrown player, much loved by the fans, who I'm 99% sure would have gone on to captain the side, and we've lost him on a FREE.

Losing the future captain on a free makes me oxf*rd angry, much more so than selling a talented goalkeeper for ~£8 million does.

Look back on the match reports from the first few games of the season and he was arguably one of if not our best defenders. I know that's not saying much but even so, also the fact we won 4 out of our 5 'meaningful' games with him in the back four tells a story. He wasn't as good as last season because the standard of opposition was significantly higher.

I'm not suggesting that all of the reasons I listed above made him pissed off, quite the opposite he just got on with it and never moaned. My point was that the club's treatment of him over the years shows that there's hardly been a great deal of loyalty from the club to him so why should he just sign up?

On that point, if the club saw him as a future captain why didn't they go and tie him down with a long-term deal in the middle of the promotion season, rather than wait until the start of this one after they'd gone and given massive pay rises to Karacan and Federici as well as signing the likes of Guthrie and Pog?

I agree it's frustrating, it's downright infuriating to lose him and while the player and his agent take a portion of the blame, I'm disgusted by the way the club handled the whole situation. Dropping him for non-footballing reasons was ridiculous and you'd have thought the club would have known a lot better.

[St. Brynjar]

Pearce isn't even that good, and he's being a massive helmet. I'd rather have Morrison and Mariapppa. He wasn't good enough before last season.

[SCIAG]

Pearce isn't even that good, and he's being a massive helmet. I'd rather have Morrison and Mariapppa. He wasn't good enough before last season.

I would respectfully disagree. Pearce is a step ahead of Morrison, he's a much more intelligent defender and doesn't make as many mistakes.

Pearce has pretty much always been good enough. He probably wasn't deserving of regular starts under Coppell, but since then (and Bikey and Duberry leaving and Ívar declining) he's been consistently one of our two best centre backs IMO. Mills was good, but Pearce was less error prone and a better footballer. Put it this way- Pearce didn't suddenly become good because we signed Gorkss, and Mills didn't suddenly become rubbish when Leicester made him captain.

[RoyalTank]

Pearce isn't even that good, and he's being a massive helmet. I'd rather have Morrison and Mariapppa. He wasn't good enough before last season.

I would also disagree.

He won POTS last season and was an absolute rock. You can't really call him a massive helmet because he is looking to take a step up in his career. He was a great player for us and I wish him good luck wherever he is next season (apart from QPR).

[AthleticoSpizz]

Hardly Maccas best game today?

Will be proud for Reading to see him capped. Not the end of our world if he's sold, we have plenty in reserve.

Would rather see our outfield players getting the plaudits

[Ian Royal]

Hardly Maccas best game today?

Will be proud for Reading to see him capped. Not the end of our world if he's sold, we have plenty in reserve.

Would rather see our outfield players getting the plaudits

No not his best. Still pulled off a couple of very good saves. Shame about the first goal. But then he was given a crap pass with two shammers closing him down. Should have done better mind. Very nearly saved the third.

[melonhead]

manager forced hinm to have a stinker so no one would want to buy him

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Probably a similar problem to the one afflicting Morrison. He's been told by the manager to pass the ball from the back, and it's something he's having to "learn on the job" because he's never been asked to do before.

[RoyalBlue]

Probably a similar problem to the one afflicting Morrison. He's been told by the manager to pass the ball from the back, and it's something he's having to "learn on the job" because he's never been asked to do before.

If this is true, then it is one of the biggest indictments of McDermott. That having been said, McCarthy was brought up through our youth setup and I'm pretty damn sure they coach their players to build and pass right from the back. That seems to have been the culture in all parts of the club bar the senior men! The women's/girls teams are also coached the same way - keepers encouraged to throw or kick short to their teammates, rather than hoofing the ball long from the ground and hands. The latter tactic is reserved for occasions when a quick counter-attack looks a very good option.

[Ian Royal]

I think it was more likely to be "hoof it" Gorkss who had the problem with being told to pass it around. I'm not positive, but I think it may have been him who put McCarthy in bother. He looked utterly incompetent every time he got the ball under even remote pressure and tried to make a short pass rather than just welly it forward. Not that he was any good at that earlier in the season either.