Reading FC News: 'Don’t mess with him' Royals captain shares first impression of new manager Paul Ince

Ince swiftly arrived following the departure of Veljko Paunovic on Saturday and Morrison explained that the former Blackpool manager is already aiming putting his mark on his new squad.

"Paul’s been in for the last two days, certainly knows what he wants to do with the football team, is aware that there’s limited time before games at the moment," Morrison said on Monday evening. 

"But I think he’ll put a real stamp on the team and he’s looking for us to be a lot harder to beat which can only help us with the talent we’ve got further up the pitch, the likes of John Swift and Lucas Joao connecting like they did at the weekend.

"You can see a steeliness in what he wants to do and in his approach, speaks very well. And I think you can tell there’s an undertone of ‘don’t mess with him’. He knows what he’s doing, he’s played at the highest level, he brings a clear understanding of what he wants.

Paul Ince on punditry duty in 2019. Image by: PA

"Obviously we’ve still been leaking goals and the new manager can see that, he’s talked about that already - about being a stronger unit defensively because we know we’ve got talent further up the pitch."

Captain at Reading since Liam Moore was stripped of the honour in January, the experienced centre-back played 183 times for Birmingham before joining the Royals in 2019.

"There’s a lot of new faces there now!" Morrison said of his former club. "Football changes really really quickly, so there’s only a couple lads who are still there from when I was there.

"Birmingham will always have a special place in my heart, it’s somewhere I loved playing for and I was really honoured to be captain there but I’ll just treat it like any other game - I’m sure if I score I’ll still be celebrating!"

Reading will be looking to claim back-to-back wins for the first time since mid-October on Tuesday night at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.