second season he contributed to Celtic winning the league championship, although he did not feature in the title winning match against Dundee United. After O'Dea did not play for two months (since his last Champions League match against FC Spartak Moscow), the BBC reported in October that he would be recalled to the injury-plagued team as a replacement for Gary Caldwell, and he played the entire league match against Rangers on 20 October 2007. That season, he primarily played centre-back. During the 2008–09 season O'Dea made a total of sixteen appearances, scoring twice. His extra-time goal in the 2009 Scottish League Cup Final gave Celtic the trophy. After playing fifty times for the club, O'Dea was loaned to championship club Reading in September 2009 for more first-team experience and he called it a "massive chance" to represent Celtic. He made his debut in a 0–0 draw against Doncaster Rovers, with his second-half shot saved by Doncaster goalkeeper Neil Sullivan. In a September interview, O'Dea was reluctant to return to Celtic for rare match opportunities. Returning from Reading in January 2010, he started all five games that month. O'Dea was appointed stand-in captain after Stephen McManus went on loan to Middlesbrough and Gary Caldwell left for Wigan. At the start of the following season, again finding himself superfluous at Celtic, he was loaned to Ipswich Town on 18 August 2010 until January 2011 and made his Ipswich debut against Crystal Palace on 21 August. In January O'Dea said he was uncertain if his loan would be extended because of the sacking of Ipswich manager Roy Keane, expressing his desire to stay. New manager Paul Jewell unexpectedly extended his loan to the end of the season. Vital Football praised O'Dea's performance in a league cup match against Arsenal, with Jewell calling it "tremendous and crucial in the result". Two months later, he expressed a desire to return to Celtic instead of signing permanently with Ipswich. O'Dea said he would play for another club if he did not have first-team opportunities at Celtic, since he felt that playing was "not about sitting on a bench". In May 2011, he said he "may quit Celtic" to play regularly and represent the national team at the 2012 UEFA Euro qualifiers. The following month Leeds United signed him on loan until the end of the season, and he said his objective on his new club was