Vito Mannone Moves Stateside In Search Of First Team Football

After David Meyler and Marc McNulty completed deadline loan moves away from Reading, Vito Mannone was the only transfer listed player left at the club as the window slammed shut, but the Italian has now been snapped up himself by Minnesota United.

The MLS Club have agreed a deal to sign him on loan until the end of 2019, a period which covers the whole of the upcoming campaign that kicks off on March 2nd. Last year, Minnesota’s second season in existence, they finished 10th out of 12 teams in the Western Conference, with no team conceding more goals than them. Mannone will be hoping to change that, and faces competition from last season’s number one Bobby Shuttleworth and the recently drafted Dayne St. Clair.

It brings to an end an 11 year spell in England for the shot stopper, who joined Arsenal’s academy as a teenager before going on to play for Barnsley, Hull and Sunderland ahead of joining Reading as Ali Al-Habsi’s replacement in the summer of 2017.

Mannone made 41 appearances for the Royals in his first season at the club, and started the current campaign as first choice too, but he has not featured since the 2-1 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday on September 1st. With his contract up in the summer of 2020, it is unlikely we’ll see him a Reading shirt again.

Off the pitch, Mannone has come across as a genuinely lovely bloke, and we wish him all the best across the pond.