Former Reading FC assistant manager Nigel Gibbs is calling on the current squad to ‘pull together’ as the side battle relegation.

56-year-old Gibbs was a Youth Development coach under Steve Coppell from 2006-2009, before being given the opportunity to step up as first team assistant manager under Brian McDermott in 2009.

The Watford legend was a key member of the backroom staff in a glittering spell in which the club reached two FA Cup quarter-finals, a play-off final and the famous 2012 Championship to win promotion to the Premier League.

Speaking exclusively to the Reading Chronicle, Gibbs says that Reading are still a club close to his heart.

He said: “I still speak to people there now and Reading is one of the first results I look for, and that won’t change. I’ve got a lot of affinity to the club want them to do well.

“From the outside looking in, it’s been a tough season fighting for relegation. The most important thing is that the team pull together and stay in the division. Then hopefully things settle down in the summer.”

Arriving at the club in the peak of the Coppell-era, the former Leeds United and Tottenham Hotspur assistant manager, Gibbs said he felt incredibly lucky to be joining the club at that time.

He added: “I was assistant manager at Watford and spent a year out then got a call from Nick Hammond that said they were looking for a development coach. Ray Lewington had recommended me to Steve Coppell, and it went from there.

“I was lucky to be joining at a great time when they had just got promoted to the Premier League in a role they had never had before working with the younger pros hoping to step up to the first team if they were good enough. What a great opportunity for me to work at a club on the up with a legend like Steve Coppell. I jumped at the chance.”

After seven years with the club, Gibbs and McDermott were relieved of their duties with the club battling relegation from the Premier League, however both would return.

Having assisted Paul Clement at Swansea City, the Watford Hall of Famer didn’t have to think twice when asked to join the current Everton assistant in Berkshire.

Unfortunately, it was not to end in happy circumstances, with the pair sacked midway through their second season despite keeping the side in the Championship the season prior.

Gibbs explained: “I had a lot of affection for Reading so when Paul said he was offered the job and he asked me if I wanted to come back I said yes straight away.

“It was a vastly different club to the one I left. Again, we were going into a team devoid of confidence.

“Paul doesn’t get the credit for keeping them in the league that he deserved because they were gone. We were promised investment in the team and that wasn’t the case. We had too many not good enough players in the squad, and we tried to build a better spirit within the squad, but it wasn’t easy with the players we had.

“They had talented Under-23s that would never get a chance and we had to strip the squad. It was a legacy of what we took over where lots of managers had been in charge.

“It wasn’t as well planned as it was under McDermott and Hammond. It’s hard to build the spirit anywhere, and that’s why it’s so good when you think back to the team under Brian.

“The football club have got to do what they think is right but it’s never nice to be sacked.

“I still speak to people there now and Reading is one of the first results I look for, and that won’t change. I’ve got a lot of affinity to the club want them to do well.

“There’s always mitigating circumstances, but ultimately we weren’t able to win enough football matches.”