Royals captain Graeme Murty is currently out on loan with fellow Championship side Charlton Athletic, and he is enjoying playing regularly - although results have not been great for the Addicks.

Former Reading man Phil Parkinson is in charge at The Valley, and they are currently bottom of the division, some eight points adrift of safety.

Murty said, "Being at Charlton is exactly what I expected. It's hard work, it's intense and physical and very demanding. I wouldn't want to be here if it was easy, in fact the easy option would have been to stay at Reading and watch the games and play for the reserves. But I don't want to do that, I want to play first team football and Phil Parkinson's been kind enough to give me the chance. And hopefully I can pay him back with solid performances at right back.

"The Championship has changed from a few years ago when we won it at Reading. There's a lot of big teams in it, it's like a mini Premiership at the moment. Lots of teams with a lot of money and lots of teams who have recent Premiership experience. They all seem to have big dreams and I think that if Charlton get out of this predicament it will be akin to Reading winning the league. It's going to demand that much of us, but with the attitude we've shown we're giving ourselves a chance.

"The fans have high standards and expectations at Charlton - we were a top half Premier League side a few years ago. But you also sense now that they would accept scraping clear. Whatever we can do by scrapping and battling, we'll do as long as we get out of it. We'd love to repay their loyalty because we're bottom of the league with 20,000 coming through the gate - that says something about the stature of the club within the community.

"The season isn't over yet, there are lots of points to play for and we'll end up where we deserve to be at the end of the season. There are a lot of teams who think they are safe but could get dragged in, and I should know that given what happened to Reading last year - we thought we were safe and went down on the last day. And there is hopefully one who will arise from the ashes at the bottom - and hopefully that's us. If people write us off then great, they will underestimate us and we will use that to our advantage.

"A lot of players here are here to prove a point and I'm one of them. Tom Soares, Tresor Kandol, Darren Ward - I know they are all desperate to prove they are good players and show that. We could be picking up wages at our respective clubs and playing for the reserves, but we wanted to come here on loan and contribute more fully. That's not the mentality of these boys, we want to win and want to help the cause."