9 Reading FC signings that flopped – Do you agree? | OneFootball

Over the years, there have been plenty of players who have been signed by Reading FC.

As you would expect to be the case with any club, some of those players have certainly had a bigger impact at the Madejski Stadium than others.

But while certain individuals ranging from John Swift to Liam Moore, and many more, will always be remembered as inspired and lucrative signings that undoubtedly paid off for the Royals, there are plenty of recruits for whom things most certainly did not work out during their time with the Berkshire club.

Here, we’ve decided to take a look at nine of those players who quite simply flopped in emphatic style during their time with Reading, for one reason or another, and there are likely to be some individual who those of a Royals persuasion may not – or would prefer not to – remember.

But how many of these do you actually recognise?

We start this list with Mathieu Manset, who stepped up from League Two to the Championship when he joined Reading from Hereford United in the summer of 2010.

However, the striker struggled to really settle at The Madejski, or establish himself in the side, making just 35 appearances and scoring a rather underwhelming five goals in all competitions for the Royals, before loaned to Shanghai Shenhua in February 2012.

Manset subsequently left Reading permanently in the summer of 2012, and has since gone on to play for 12 different clubs in a variety of different countries – including Carlisle, Coventry, Cheltenham and Walsall in England – never making more than a handful of appearances for any of those sides.

Cywka joined Reading as a free agent in January 2012, signing a short-term contract until the end of that season.

Despite the fact that the Royals charged to the Championship title that season, Cywka himself failed to make much of an impact at The Madejski Stadium, making just four appearances for Reading as he struggled to establish himself in Brian McDermott’s side, before not surprisingly being released at the end of that season.

Spells with Barnsley, Blackpool and Rochdale followed elsewhere in the Football League for the midfielder, before he eventually returned to his native Poland in 2015, where he is now playing for second-tier Chrobry Glogow.

Given he joined Reading from Portuguese giants Sporting Lisbon in the 2013 winter transfer window, much may have been expected from Carrico, but little was delivered.

The midfielder made just three league appearances for the Royals between his move and the end of the season, before being sent on loan to Sevilla in the summer of 2013, following Reading’s relegation from the Premier League.

That move to Sevilla was made permanent 12 months later with Carrico having failed to add to those three appearances for Reading, with the midfielder staying with the La Liga club until February 2020, when he moved to China to join Wuhan Zall, despite the city being the epicentre of the pandemic the World now finds itself engulfed by.

As a former La Liga title winner with Real Madrid, Drenthe is another who will have arrived at Reading with plenty of expectation, that he ultimately failed to live up to.

Having joined the Royals in the summer of 2013, the midfielder scored just twice in 23 Championship appearances during the 2013/14, and was loaned to Sheffield Wednesday at the start of the following season.

Drenthe then made a permanent move to Turkish side Kayserispor in January 2015, and after subsequent spells in the UAE and the Netherlands, is now playing in the Spanish fourth-tier with Racing Murcia, where he has scored four goals in nine appearances since joining in January.

Hurtado joining Reading on a three-year deal from Portuguese side Pacos de Ferreira in the summer of 2015, but failed to ever settle at the Madejski.

After just five league appearances, all of which came from the bench, Hurtado returned to Portugal when he joined Vitoria Guimaraes on loan in January 2016, a deal he later extended for the whole of the 2016/17 season.

The winger then moved to Guimaraes on a permanent basis in the summer of 2017, but after just a year there, he joined Konyaspor in Turkey, making just 35 appearances during a two-and-a-half-year spell before joining Bulgarian title-chasers Lokomotiv Plovdiv in January.

Rakels joined Reading on a two-and-a-half year deal from Cracovia in January 2016, following an impressive couple of years for the Polish top-flight side.

However, the striker hit some bad luck early in the 2016/17 season when he suffered a broken leg in an EFL Cup match in August 2016, that kept him out of action for the remainder of the campaign.

The 2017/18 season saw Rakels return to Poland on loan, but after just one goal in 26 games in his home country, the striker was released by Reading in the summer of 2018, having scored just three goals in 17 appearances in all competitions for the Royals.

Wieser joined Reading on a three-year deal from Swiss side FC Thun in the summer of 2016, although it would be more than understandable if the majority of Royals fans hadn’t noticed that.

During his time at The Madejski Stadium, Wieser failed to make a single first-team appearance for the Royals, instead finding himself restricted to outings for the club’s Under 23s side, where he even struggled to impress at that level.

After spending the 2017/18 campaign on loan in Belgium with Roeselare, the midfielder was released from his contract with Reading a year early in the summer of 2018, and Lichtenstein international is now back playing in his home country for FC Vaduz – who compete in the Swiss top-flight.

Meyler joined Reading following his release by Hull City at the end of the 2017/18 season, with the view to bringing an extra presence to the Royals’ midfield.

However, the midfielder was limited to just five appearances for the club, having struggled for both form and fitness during his time at The Madejski, before being loaned out to Coventry in the midway through his first season with the Royals.

After making just a handful of appearances for the Sky Blues, Meyler saw his contract with Reading terminated year early in the summer of 2019, with the midfielder retiring just a few months later, perhaps a telling reflection on the situation he was in when he joined the Royals.

Reading reportedly paid £2.5million to take Vydra on loan from Watford for the 2015/16 season, money that it turned out, was not well spent.

Despite his previously prolific at Championship level during two separate loan spells with the Hornets, Vydra simply did not reach those same sort of heights during his time at The Madejski Stadium.

The centre forward scored just three goals in 31 league games for Reading during that season with the Royals, as they ultimately finished 17th in the Championship table, meaning they did at least not have to worry about the option to make Vydra’s move permanent for £10million had they won promotion to the Premier League.