Forest aim to spoil the Royal party

Nottingham Forest face league leaders Reading on Tuesday night

Steve Cotterill's refused to say his side were safe after the weekend draw with Blackpool and may have done so knowing what a tough fixture awaited them at the Madejski Stadium.

Reading moved to within a whisker of promotion to the Premier League on Friday night by winning the table-topping showdown against Southampton thanks to two late Adam Le Fondre goals.

Brian McDermott's side have now won 14 of their last 16 games.

"It's an amazing achievement," McDermott said. "The players have done that.

"Apart from the first six games of the season, we would be winning this league by a long way.

"We had a tough summer as everybody knows and I keep banging on about it, but that is what happened.

"We lost the play-off final, we lost players, we had to replace them and we had to find another way and we've done that."