Paul Ince's tenure as interim Reading FC manager got off to the best possible start as goals from Lucas Joao and John Swift helped earn the Royals a 2-1 victory at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.

After the match he spoke about the returning belief, how it feels to be back, and what Reading need to do to avoid the drop. 

On how it feels to be back managing and winning…

It feels better to have a win. It’s a tough one really because I never envisioned myself being back in the dug-out. I’ve got football in my blood and I’ve always wanted to show.

But it’s been a few years since I’ve been back in the dug-out, it’s been a few years since I’ve managed. But I’m 54, not 84. You know how you never forget how to ride a bike? I know how to manage because I’ve done it before and my CV’s as good as any person’s from what I’ve done. 

So to be back in the dug-out, to get the win…we haven’t won here for four months which is madness when you look at the quality we’ve got in this team. And we rode our luck today at times, they’re a good side, Lee Bowyer’s side. They’re a side playing with no pressure. We’re a side playing under pressure because we’re trying to stay in this league. So to play the way we did and get the three points, it was great for the lads, great for the fans. But there’s a lot of work to do, really a lot of work to do. 

When you look at this team and look at the bench, we’ve got three kids on the bench, we’re down to bare-bones. We’ve got 17 players, any players you bring to the club are going to be free transfers. And you know the Championship is demanding - and yet - these players are playing week in week out and they were on their knees towards the end of the game.

So it’s a tough challenge for me. But it’s a challenge I’m used to. It’s a challenge I’ve done at Macclesfield, it’s a challenge I’ve done at Blackpool. I’m here to help. And if we keep picking up points and show that mental toughness we did today when we’re under pressure, we’ll have a great chance at staying up.

I’ve always been one of those people who likes to help people. And if I can help this club in a way and help these fans and players stay in the league than I’ve done a job. How long will that last, how long am I here for? I don’t know. But I was asked to help, I’m here to help and it’s great to get off with a win.

On the quality in the squad…

I think when you look at last year, they finished 7th in the table, and you think they’ve lost Richards to Bayern Munich, Olise to Palace, but the majority of the squad is the team that played so well last year. Paunovic did a fantastic job but something’s gone wrong, somewhere down the line. 

To see the quality of these players…Lucas, Swifty, Thomas, Junior, Yakou…these are good good players. The problem with this team is we’re always going to score goals, but we’ve got a -23 goal difference so that says it. That’s so transparent in the fact that we’re not defending, we’re not getting back into our shape out of possession. It’s all about going forward and creating chances but unfortunately, football’s not like that. 

The best teams, the Citys, the Liverpools…they all get back into shape. This is something we need to install into the team because they’ve had this mentality where it’s just about going forward and playing football. And we did that today when we were under pressure.

At times we rode our luck, we’re not there yet. I’ve only been here three days, we’ve got Blackpool again on Saturday and then the week after that we’ve got a full week. That’s the most pleasing thing - we haven’t done any work on the training ground, we’re down to our bare-bones, and they took it on-board today. 

We are going to be under pressure as a team because the fact is we aren’t safe yet. But the fact that we can guarantee we won’t concede as many goals as we have done gives us a chance of staying up with the quality we’ve got up front.

On the returning belief…

I think you have to remember, even when the previous manager left, they weren’t in the bottom three. I know it wasn’t looking brilliant because we weren’t winning games but we weren’t in the bottom three. This team has quality, we’ll always score goals, you just have to learn you have to defend. When you win games the belief grows.

The fans are so important because we’re not going to win every game -  it’s going to go to the wire, let me tell you that now. Eight points seems like a nice little gap but those teams still have to play tomorrow. We talk about Barnsley, we talk about Peterborough, Derby are doing an amazing job. People seem to think it’s just four teams that can go down but it’s not. If we keep winning games we can drag other teams into it and that’s what we’ve got to try and do.

But we’re building confidence, two wins on the bounce, and we go to Blackpool which won’t be easy. Should be fun going back there! But sometimes at this time of the season it’s not how you play, it’s about picking up points. We did that today. We showed our mental toughness when we had to, it’s a great start for us.