Coppell: our target to survive

Steve Coppell has insisted that Premiership survival is Reading's only target this season. Reading's sixth straight league loss has seen them edge ever closer to the relegation zone.

Coppell groaned: "We can't beat about the bush - avoiding relegation is our only target. With 14 games still to go, or however many it is, we have a real struggle on our hands.

"I haven't had that at Reading but what a great challenge and we have got to rise to it.

"I have felt for a long time that any three from eight or nine could go down. Now we are significantly one of the three.

"We had good spells and bad spells last year but our good spells carried us through. This year we haven't had a good spell of any significance. We have got to score more goals and have more clean sheets.

"If we don't have clean sheets then we don't deserve to stay up."