It is a crying shame that Lee Tomlin did not play a single minute of football for Cardiff City in 2021, yet a very very talented player who seems to underachieve at every single club and has never sorted his attitude out or his fitness levels despite promising he would so many times.
So this year saw finally Cardiff move him out and pay him off.
That was down to Tomlin this finally happened as the club could see he was never going to change.
There are two sides to that story, as they always are. Some believe he was fit enough to play at the back end of last season, others say McCarthy demanded he get even fitter before getting a shot.
Tomlin also had problems with Neil Warnock who eventually gave up on Lee Tomlins attitude and fitness.
A £3mill buy and only 34 starts in 4 years for Cardiff City was one of the highest paid players on their pay roll was certainly not enough and will go down in history as player that was very unsuccessful at the Bluebird and if you look back at his career in football that’s happened at all his seven previous clubs.
It was always a tetchy subject whenever it was brought up in press conferences. There was a defensiveness to McCarthy which you rarely saw when he was speaking about other aspects.
Tomlin was named on the bench in the final game of last season and played a part in pre-season, but news of an injury in the final summer match against Newport County brought with it a familiar feeling.
It is clear neither party saw eye to eye when the playmaker was cut from his contract towards the end of the manager's reign, a plot line which sneaked under the radar a little bit as the pressure mounted on McCarthy's shoulders.
At nearly 33 years age his best days that could of been have finally gone now anyway.
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