No idea why I wrote that twice slightly differently and it's only 10:50! Long day ahead......

I'd be tempted to get that thug Morgan in from Sheffield United, he's extremely vocal, knows how to organize a defence and would provide some guidance to some of the younger players. He's a good CB too ...even if he's a thug. No surprise sheffield utd fell apart without him though injury

if he stays or if he goes he is overrated !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
everybody on here has difering views..........
but i have seen a lot better centre halves in 37 years watching town...

I agree that he has been one of our players of the season, but lets face it, a bit of tackling and heading is all he provided, and for the majority of this season, that WOULD have made you the top player!!

In my eyes, he has pi$$ed about with this contract for long enough, so to him I say GTFO.

Listen folks, he's not gone yet. Its the Daily feckin Mail for Pete's sake. Its a poisonous right wing rag in the opinion of many.

It is bad news if this is true, as Jewell will have to spend a big chunk of his summer transfer budget replacing him, money which could instead be spent on strikers if McAuley signed for us.

McAuley will be 32 in December.

Gareth cost us about £1.1M I believe and now he is allowed to walk away for free, which is a terrible waste of Ipswich's money. Maybe a bit of blame goes to Evans as the owner and Keane for not getting involved more, but most of the blame has to go to Clegg on this one. Not many people can throw away £1M+ of their business's money and stay in a job! If Norris goes that will increase to £3M.

So what are we doing about Fulop and Leadbitter to stop this reoccuring next summer?

All the best Mac, been a good servant. Don't begrudge you playing in front of 50,000 passionate fans compared to our miserable 20,000.

St.Ledger please Jewell.

All of you calling for St Ledger need to remember he has been playing in a relegated team , in my mind if he was doing a decent job they would not have been relegated !!!!

mark hudson could do a job here as well as st ledger but st ledger is shorter than mac.

good luck gareth!

good, feck off, another one responsible for the scum humilation

was never good enough. mogga, venus and mcgreal were the last decent centre backs at the club

There are a number of comments along the lines of "players worth 2 or 3 million being allowed to walk away and the club/Clegg has thrown away all this money". This is rubbish. The money was spent when the original contract was signed and the only way that any of it would be recouped would have been for someone to make us an offer for the players; as I recall it, no worthwhile offer was ever made at a time that the manager, whoever it might have been, was prepared to let the player(s) go. Having reached the end of a player's contract, the only way to persuade someone else to pay money for him is to sign him up on an even more expensive contract than he can get elsewhere and hope that someone comes in with a bid. The phrase "throwing good money after bad" then comes to mind.

Whether or not the players concerned are worth better contracts is a joint decision made by all those at the club, including the manager, who has already said that he began planning the "new" side weeks ago and I suspect that he has a very good idea of who will stay or go and who to replace them with - and at what cost.

When someone reaches the end of the cointract, both parties have got what they promised each other out of the transaction. If you want to look at money that was thrown away, ask what happened to the £6 million paid for Matteo Sereni.

A waste of money in letting him go on a free but will save us £2million in wages for an ok defender we can get better, and we will.
If he wanted to be here he would have signed i just hope he takes the squeaky voiced norris with him as company when playing for rangers ressies.

Daily Mail... Who? Rubbish report and no truth in this. Why would Mac want to sign for Rangers anyway, they only have four games worth while playing in and their against the same team, not really a step in the right direction IMO. Big mac will sign, if he don't I bet the news that Marcus is going to invest again Jewelio already has a replacement in mind. St ledger! COYB

Worst possible outcome if this comes to pass. Delaney is a better player (it's all relative) with McAuley in the team. WIthout McA we might really regret giving Delaney a new contract. Otherwise I wouldn't be so concerned - we'll have a team of 30+ year olds at the back next season even if he stays....

jas1972 - the reason clubs did not make "worthwhile" offers for McAuley and Norris is that they are out-of-contract in the summer and so can be signed for free. If we had signed them up last summer then they would hold a transfer value now, not as high as the £3M we spent on them but I'd say between £1M and £2M.

if we wanna be pushinng for a play of place next year then we pretty much need a whole new defencce, mcauley and delaney will never be a good enough partnership to push for promotion, mc got relegated from this league and qpr who are top didnt want delaney, nuff said

Meekreech - There's more than one player in a TEAM.

Well G'bye. Journeyman. What a bunch of crap you've telt us all about nice club etc. Etc.
Proof pudding, blow it out your arse.

Martus - your're right McAuley is a good player and there is no point in people saying otherwise - I remember when many people were saying that Walters would never crack it in the Premiership. I think he has more than shown them that he can, and has.
Players with ambition, look for ambition from the club they are with, as well as money of course, but who can really blame them for that if it's there for the taking.

Not overly disappointed if I'm honest, if he really wanted to stay with us, he'd have signed by now. good luck to him, but think we need players who are 100% commited & want to prove something, not those who just see us as an easy ride.

you lot call yourself town fans? what a disgrace! without doubt big g has been absolutely terrific at centre-back for the last two years after a difficult first season. This season he's been our best player by an absolute country mile. I think some of the comments on here are a disgrace!! as for the 100% bit well the club have had what 1, 2 years to sort out contracts especially for key players and they leave it till the last minute to do anything about it!! no wonder they all leave! if gareth leaves i would be very sad to see him leave and think he would be difficult to replace

Tbh i wouldn't mind if he didn't stay, yes he's a good player but he's not 100% commited to the club so won't play to his potential. Anyway he's like in his 30's so he won't be in the game long. Plus it does mean that we can finally rebuild a GOOD defence and hopefully we'll get someone in better and younger the Gareth that will be a good strong partner for our loyal Damien Delainy.
For the summer: A strong quick Center back
At least 2 midefielders a holding midfielder
and someone who's not afraid to shoot!
And at least 2 SHOOTING strikers who aren't afraid of
any defence and who will take strikers on, especially
down the wing.
Oh and get Murphy in goal, and buy another tall strong quick goalkeeper who dosen't fault under pressuer. That should be it but thats only if Evans invests like 15 million that amount will hopefully give us a chance of pushing for the playoffs.

Have to question his commitment to the club because he hasn't signed.... bearing in mind our last few performances, we need players who really want to play for the club