In hindsight, Reading FC were the winners of £5m+ Leicester City deal: View | OneFootball

It was unclear whether Reading were going to be able to push for promotion again in the coming years following their 2011 play-off final defeat against Swansea City.

The manner of the defeat was extremely tough to take for the Royals' fanbase, who saw their team go in at half-time at 3-0 down, with Scott Sinclair's brace and Stephen Dobbie's strike putting the Swans on the verge of a return to the Premier League.

Goals from two set-pieces in the second 45 made it 3-2, with captain Matt Mills scoring the second, and the Royals even hit the post after that.

Jem Karacan's deflected shot was inches away from going in, but that proved to be a crucial moment, with Sinclair scoring Swansea's fourth from the penalty spot to secure a 4-2 win at Wembley.

Having sealed an emphatic second leg win against Cardiff City in the semis, the Berkshire side's efforts were in vain in the end and it always looked as though there would be departures in the summer after that gutting loss.

Zurab Khizanishvili and Mikele Leigertwood returned to their respective parent clubs, which was a blow, although the latter returned permanently during the summer of 2011 following the Wembley heartbreak.

Captain Mills and Shane Long left though, with the latter earning a deserved move to Premier League club West Bromwich Albion after becoming a real asset under then-manager Brian McDermott.

Matt Mills' move to Leicester City

Then-new Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was willing to heavily back Sven-Goran Eriksson in the transfer market.

Some excellent additions came in, including Paul Konchesky, David Nugent and Sean St Ledger, and Srivaddhanaprabha forked out a considerable amount of money for Mills.

Then-Reading director of football Nicky Hammond had and still has a great track record of negotiating excellent deals for players - and he would have played a part in persuading the Foxes to pay more than £5m for the central defender.

Reading FC ended up benefitting more from Matt Mills deal

Mills didn't succeed at Leicester, falling out of favour under Nigel Pearson during the final few months of the 2011/2 season despite initially establishing himself as an important player at the King Power Stadium.

Spending just one season with the Foxes, he then moved on to Bolton Wanderers, but he wasn't able to push for promotion there and even battled relegation at the Toughsheet Community Stadium.

He did manage to secure a decent amount of game time with the Trotters, but he would have been gutted not to have secured a move to the top flight, either with Bolton or another club.

Nottingham Forest was his next club and he was an important player there, but he made just 13 league appearances during the first half of the 2017/18 campaign and it was no major surprise when he terminated his deal in January 2018.

Moves to Barnsley, Indian Super League outfit Pune City and then-League Two outfit Forest Green Rovers followed, before he hung up his boots.

Even without Mills' career decline in mind, the Royals clearly benefitted from the defender's sale to Leicester, with his move helping to fund some of their excellent additions during the 2011/12 season.

Leigertwood, Kaspars Gorkss (pictured above), Adam Le Fondre and Jason Roberts all played a vital role in guiding the Royals to promotion in April 2012, with Le Fondre also going on to be a real asset in the top flight.

All of those players combined wouldn't have cost anywhere near £5m, just going to show how well the Royals did to generate the amount of money they did from the central defender's sale.

Mills may have been a good player for McDermott, but Gorkss was just as good and the Pearce-Gorkss combination in central defence was just as effective as the Mills-Khizanishvili one was.