Coppell: No More Loyal Royal

Royals boss Steve Coppell has admitted he has been too loyal to certain members of his side, and needs to get tough if his side are to beat the drop.

Reading suffered their eighth defeat in a row on Sunday at the hands of Aston Villa but it could be a very different team that travels to the Riverside on Saturday.

Coppell said, ‘I probably feel at the moment as though maybe I’ve been too loyal to some players in the squad and it might just be that there’ll be four or five changes for the next game. I really don’t know at the moment.

‘The ones on the outside of the team must be hellishly frustrated, and the ones who are playing at the moment just aren’t delivering’.

The Reading manager has played pretty much the same side in recent weeks, despite not winning since before Christmas, but he has admitted things simply aren’t working.

He continued, ‘I’m a great believer that if you keep on doing what you’re doing you’ll get more of what you’ve got. So something’s got to change. I don’t know what it is yet, it may be personnel.

‘Something has to break the cycle we’re in at the moment because it’s non-productive and we need to do something else.’

With Coppell promising changes, Liam Rosenior and Leroy Lita are the most likely players to come in.

Lita is in good form, having scored 5 goals in his last 3 reserve games.

Another player who could get a start is Shane Long, the Republic of Ireland international has done his chances no harm, scoring in last nights 1-1 reserve game with Aston Villa.