Murty Ruled Out Of Coppell Opener

Twenty-eight-year-old full-back Graeme Murty, a mainstay in Reading's defensive line-up for a large part of alan pardew's tenure at the club, will watch from the sidelines tomorrow night as Steve Coppell begins his career as Reading manager.

Murty, who missed Reading's game against Bradford nine days ago, is yet to recover from a calf injury. Whilst it is widely-believed that the former York man will return for Saturday's game at home to Preston, physio Jon Fearn admits he isn't sure when Murts will be back in training.

"Graeme will return to full training when he's able to carry out full speed running, but it's difficult to tell when that will be but he's progressing well every day," he said to the official site.

Although Murty is missing from Coppell's matchday squad, the new manager will otherwise have a fully fit pool of players to choose his first starting line-up from. James Harper, has recovered from flu whilst Steve Brown, who has missed the past two games, is also fit to play.

Reading fans will be interested to see if the heavily criticised Andy Hughes maintains his place in the team.