Steve Coppell will accept the blame if Reading are relegated from the next week - but a summer transfer kitty awaits if they stay up.Coppell's decision not to spend at the end of last season or in January has backfired, leaving them needing a win at Derby and crucially for Fulham to drop points at Portsmouth on the final day of the campaign.

"It's arguably the biggest game in the club's history," said the Reading boss. "We enjoy playing in the Premier League and we want to stay here."

Chairman John Madejski, currently on crutches nursing a broken ankle, will then allow his manager to learn from his mistakes in the last transfer windows.

"We have already developed plans to make significant investment in the playing squad during the summer," Madejski said. "But at the moment the short-term imperative of retaining our position in the top flight is our only focus."

After finishing eighth in their rookie campaign in the top flight, Coppell did not want to upset the balance of his squad by making radical changes.

"Since the chairman has come here he's built a club that's self-financing and that, ultimately, may be our downfall because I took the calculated risk not to spend as much money last summer and in January," Coppell said. "If it doesn't work it's my fault.

"Always, the manager always gets the blame. When the team win it's because the players are great. When the team loses, my shoulders are broad enough, I'll take anything that's coming."

Even though Coppell may not have had as much to spend as other clubs, there has still been a lack of inspiration that has led to six games without a goal.

It means victory at Pride Park is not a formality.

"Other teams were spending £20-30million and we certainly didn't have that much," Coppell said.

"I made the decision that I didn't want to reward two years of success by telling half the team 'thanks a lot, but you're finished now'.

"We have a certain mentality. We never bought promotion and bringing people in from different countries, it's hard to integrate them to our mentality.

"If you are just buying the cream at the top of the tree, it doesn't matter you can bring anyone in. We can't afford that - when foreign players look at which club in England they want to go to, Reading is fairly low down on the register."

Coppell admits the only way to stay out of trouble is investment, even taking into account Reading's first season in the Premier League.

"That was the dream last year, we took advantage of teams who cocked up," he said. "We had momentum from the previous year, but you beat the system with money.

"It's the only way you can beat the system. I spoke with Sam Allardyce in the summer and I asked him what's the secret to what he did at Bolton and he said 'spend, spend, spend'.

"Unfortunately, that probably is the secret."

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