Christian McFarlane joins on season loan from Man City - Official

[VLC86]

8 minutes ago, LeePhilpottsBaldSpot said:

A Reading fan I know thinks he's class, but not sure I like the idea of developing him over Page / Braybrooke / Neale.

 

Same goes for Watson getting minutes over Alves.

 

That said, I thought Harry Kane was crap when we had him on loan, so I won't be writing any of them off just yet!

I think Braybrooke is one who might end up struggling a bit, Page will get plenty of minutes this season.

 

Watson has been the loan player with the most minutes and the one I’m most worried about to be honest, I think he looks quite poor and wouldn’t be shocked if he’s used sparingly as the months go by. Alves has been one of our best players this season but needs to up his goals and assists if we are going to do well.

[ajthefox]

On 07/10/2026 at 15:55, MGLCFC said:

Perhaps the problem loaning defenders from Man City is that they don't actually have to do much defending in their academy, so look world beaters going forward. I like the idea of attacking full backs, but our best full backs in recent years could actually defend. Simpson, Fuchs, Berner, Konchesky for example. For how good Ricardo was, he wasn't the best defensively and that goes for many of the so called attacking full backs that have been at Leicester over the last 5 or 6 years.

I think that's the game in general over the last few years, at least in the PL anyway. 

 

I feel like Simpson was probably a better defender than many full backs who have played for top half teams over the last 10 years, but I suspect he wouldn't get into many of them because he wouldn't suit how they play.