Arsenal have confirmed that Matt Macey has signed for Hibernian.
The 26-year-old leaves the Gunners after nine years having made two appearances for the first team back in 2017.
Signed from Bristol Rovers in 2011, he rose steadily through the ranks to become the club’s third-choice stopper. Along the way, he went out on loan to Accrington Stanley, Luton Town and Plymouth Argyle.
Matt has penned an initial six-month contract with Hibs and is hoping to put his Arsenal experience to good use in the SPL.
“I’m really excited to get going,” he told the Hibernian website.
“I spoke to the gaffer [Jack Ross] and Craig Samson but, to be honest, my mind was already made up to come.
“I’m grateful for every experience I had at Arsenal but I’m hungry to play first-team football. I know that won’t be handed to me here, so it’s up to me to show what I can do in training and take it from there.
“No-one has to tell me what a big club Hibernian is, in a competitive league. I’m looking forward to getting started.”
Best of luck for the future, Matt.
Good luck Matt. A shame he never got that many opportunities, but at least that’s another 180k off of the weekly wages.
Lol I wonder if there’s a club in the world that would pay that much to a 3rd choice keeper.
Good luck to him anyway
Macey was only on around 10k a week. Not too bad compared to Man Utd paying 70k a week to their 4th choice keeper Romero – who is allegedly available.
Romero would actually be a perfect second choice for us. Experienced, relative safe pair of hands, and Hein and Okonkwo would benefit from training with him.
You have yourself answered why it can’t happen. We wouldn’t want to match that 70k salary. Otherwise replacing Runarsson with Romero is a no brainer.
fine by me but i think i’d rather we never signed runarsson and opted for macey (or hein or whoever) instead, can’t be that much worse
Rúnarsson was such a strange signing if we are going to sign a mediocre cheap backup keeper makes much more sense to sign a homegrown one for registration reasons – surely most starting Championship keepers would have cost a similar price (except Raya)
Martinez was just as bad when he first got into the first team. That reading game stands our among others where he let in even more dodgy goals. Not saying runnarson will get to that level by the way but we need perspective. He cost 2m if he flops so what it’s not like we spent 71m on him *cough* kepa
If he flops do what? Goalkeepers flopping is not the same as Aubu not scoring for 3 games or William plating on the right. When your goalkeeper flops you are usually fked.
That Reading Game was in 2012 and Emi was just 20 years old. Runarsson is 25 years old already and he’s been dropped everywhere he’s played. There’s no comparison .
I think 5 years from now he’ll be off and we’ll vaguely remember him as a piece of trivia for “the last icelandic player to play for Arsenal”
And we’ll all be confused why he was here taking a homegrown spot and never get ann explaination. Kind of like park-chu young.
Swiss Ramble’s analysis of commercial income is interesting. Now I can see why my kid’s friends are all Spuds, not a Gooner amongst them. Spuds have done a good job in growing their commercial revenue while we’ve badly stagnated.
I live in Lincs and Gooners seem to be a rare breed and a target of comical derision. COYG
I’m sure he’s better than the second Goalie we’ve. So, why sell him when we don’t have adequate cover?
The clue is in Macey’s quote “I’m hungry to play first-team football” which he will likely get at Hibernian for a few weeks anyway as their #1 injured and #2 gone to QPR. They have Celtic away on Monday night – Macey getting thrown in at the deep end.
Genuinely, have you ever seen Macey play consistently in a first team? He was absolutely appalling at Plymouth Argyle, so bad that their fans couldn’t wait to see the back of him. I have nothing against the bloke but to suggest he’s better than Runarsson based on what we’ve know about Macey is quite a push. Runarsson may not be the answer but Macey certainly isn’t.
9 years loyalty, 2 games, and replaced by a guy who can’t catch a ball and had a go at Wenger publicly. Unbelievable!!!
Some of Arteta’s squad management is odd – Runner as backup GK even now, Saliba and Sokratis not in the squad while the injured Mari and Mustafi were! Hope this is part of the learning process for him.
He’s better than Runnarson
Is he though? I can’t remember seeing him play.
If the club believed he was any good they would not have signed Rúnarsson and let Macey go.
I can’t say that having not followed his performances that closely.
I will say that we’ve now let Szcez, Ospina, Martinez and Macey go. Ospina not doing too well in Serie A, Szces now playing well enough in Serie A to get into a World Class 50 I saw this week, Martinez performing well behind a tight PL defence, Macey is only going to Scotland – good luck to him though.
Have a good one, Matt!
(I still think we could have used him as our back-up instead of Runarsson.)
Is there any transfer fees associated or did he make a loan till the end of his contract?
It probably means a new keeper is coming in, as Arsenal can’t rely on Runnarson as back up. Iliev is probably coming back from his loan at Shrewsbury, but has not covered himself in glory sadly, so not a realistic No 2 keeper.
Is this a transfer or a loan? Sounds like Matt is gone permanently.