£600k Sporting deal with Reading FC will still leave Royals supporters wondering: View | OneFootball

The 2012/13 season is unlikely to be one that those associated with Reading FC will want to remember in much of a hurry.

In what was their first season back in the Premier League after promotion from the Championship the season before, the Royals struggled to ever really get going.

It was a difficult campaign for the club, winning just six of their 38 league games, and recording back to back victories only once over the course of the whole season.

As a result, Reading were relegated from the top-flight in their first season, finishing 19th, 11 points safety after amassing just 28 across the course of the campaign.

Those connected with the club will feel there may have been numerous reasons things worked out in that way.

One of those may be some of the signings that were made during that period, and there is one particular example that highlights how certain deals did not come off that season for the Royals.

The defender joined on a two-and-a-half-year deal, with the Royals paying a fee in the region of £600,000 for his services.

Given the fact that he had been captain of Portuguese giants Sporting CP at the time, where he often competed for trophies, and in European football, that did look to be a rather smart and impressive piece of business from the Royals.

In the end though, things most certainly did not work out in the way that any involved in the move would have hoped.

Royals will feel they could have got more from Sporting deal

Having completed his move to a Reading side battling to stay in the Premier League, Carrico ultimately was unable to do much to aid his new side's cause.

Over the course of the rest of the 2012/13 season, the defender made just three appearances for the Royals, only one of which was as part of the starting lineup.

That of course, meant there was little he could do to make a difference, as the club was indeed eventually relegated from the top-flight of English football.

The events of the subsequent years will then only add insult to injury for Reading, when it comes to Carrico.

Just a few months after his arrival at the club, Carrico was loaned out by Reading in the wake of their relegation to the Championship.

That move saw him head to Spain, where he linked up with La Liga side Sevilla. During that season with the club, Carrico helped them to a fifth place finish in the Spanish top-flight, while also going on to lift the Europa League title with the club.

Thanks to that, Sevilla would then move to turn the defender's loan move with the club into a permanent one, in the summer of 2014.

Having done that, Carrico then remained with the Spanish side for the next five years. During that time, he was a regular feature for them, and by the end of his time there, he had made over 150 appearances in all competitions.

As has been the case since the early part of this century for Sevilla remained a consistent presence in La Liga throughout Carrico's time there. He was also able to add three more Europa League titles to his CV before departing in 2020.

That form would even see him earn a senior international cap for Portugal in 2015, further highlighting his impact at Sevilla.

Consequently, there may be questions for those at Reading about why things did not work out differently when the midfielder was with the Royals.

His pedigree at both Sporting CP and Sevilla suggests he was more than capable of making an impact at top-flight and European level.

Some may therefore, be wondering why he was seemingly unable, or not given a chance to do that for the Royals, when they were fighting to stay in the Premier League.

Had he been able to help keep the club in the top-flight at that point, as his career record suggests he could have helped to do, things could have worked out rather differently for Reading further down the line.

With all that in mind, it does feel like there is an argument to be made for Daniel Carrico's career with the club to be considered a big "what if?" moment for those at Reading FC.