STEVE Clarke admits he looks back with regret on the days leading up to his sacking at Reading FC.

The 52-year-old Scot was given permission by the Royals to speak with Fulham about becoming their manager back in December.

He turned down a move to Craven Cottage, only to lose his job as Reading boss a few games later.

“Obviously if I could live that week again I would do things a bit differently,” he said.

“If I'd have known that Reading had it in their mind that they were going to get rid of me, that would be the one disappointment for me, when I spoke to Fulham and went back to Reading, they assured me they'd be happy for me to stay.

"Three games later I was out the door, and one of those games was a win. One was a defeat away from home, a difficult game at [Nottingham] Forest, the other a last minute loss at home to QPR, and suddenly I was back on my holidays.

"It was a strange time. I'll learn from the experiences."

Clarke, in charge from December 2014-15, also spoke of the difficulties he faced behind the scenes while Reading were in the midst of a Thai takeover.

“It was confusing from the inside," he added. “The job had become quite difficult, the team was going through a bad patch.

“I got permission from Reading to speak to Fulham, who had approached Reading, spoke to Fulham and decided that I wanted to stay at Reading.

"That was the gist of it, nothing untoward, no big drama. I chose to stay at Reading and three games later they kicked me out the door.”

Clarke also told Sky Sports' Goals on Sunday he was 'lying on a Caribbean beach,' when Reading came calling.

“I was out the game for a year and eager to get back in,” he recalled. “I didn't really do enough due diligence on the actual club, I had to make a spot of the moment decision.

"When I got in there it was quite a difficult situation, the club had frittered their money away under the Russian owner [Anton Zingarevich] and the club had been sold to a Thai consortium which had enough money to buy the club but didn't have enough to put into the club, to develop it.

“[The Thais] wanted promotion to the Premier League. When you add all that together, it was quite a difficult job.”

He continued: “We did a lot of work in the summer, brought in a lot of players, a lot of key players from the previous regime left for better offers elsewhere, so I think when you make so many changes you need time for that team to gel and come together.

“We had some good moments, you look at those teams at the top of the Championship now. Burnley, we beat. Middlesbrough, we beat. Brighton, we drew with. At that stage the team was good.

"We went off the boil a little bit when we lost three key players; Stephen Quinn, Aaron Tshibola and Hal Robson-Kanu at the same time. We lost a little bit of shape.

"That meant we had a tricky time, but we should've been given the time to manage the other side of it. Everything would have been okay.”

Clarke also argued Reading have shown little improvement since Brian McDermott was re-appointed as his successor.

Royals were just outside the play-offs when he was sacked and now lie 15th in the Championship table going into Saturday's home clash against Preston (3pm ko).

"The team hasn't done fantastic since I left, it's not as if I wasn't getting the best out the team, because they haven't shot up the table,” he declared.

"They've actually not picked up that many points since Brian took over, but I can understand for Brian that it's a difficult job because when you look above you - everyone says when you get a job you should manage upwards - and managing upwards at that club was quite difficult."