Rosenior eyes Championship title

Rosenior feels Reading can mount a serious challenge for honours

Reading defender Liam Rosenior is confident his side are capable of winning the Championship.

The Royals trail leaders Wolves by 10 points but the 24-year-old told BBC Radio Berkshire that they have not given up on claiming the title.

"Obviously our aim this season is to go up automatically - to be champions of this league," he said.

"If we didn't look to do that, then we would not be fulfilling our potential as a team."

The Royals begin a busy festive schedule with a trip to Barnsley on Saturday and Rosenior knows they can ill-afford to lose ground in the race for automatic promotion.

"After Christmas, obviously that's when you get to the business end of the season but to get there you need to win your games now and that's what we need to do on Saturday," he said.

"You go to a place like Barnsley and you know it's going to be tough.

We have just got so much pace on the break that we are going to hurt teams

Liam Rosenior

"They are the kind of places that we need to go to and win if we are going to get to where we want to be next year - and that's in the Premiership."

Michael Duberry makes only his second league start of the season in place of the suspended Andre Bikey, but Rosenior believes the switch has not affected the Royals.

"It's a seamless change really. It doesn't make a difference to us," he said.

'"Dubes has been a top player, he's played at the top level and its great for me to have someone with his experience next to me."

And it is this defensive strength-in-depth that makes Reading so tough to beat, according to Rosenior.

"When you've got a back-four that have all played in the Premier League and a goalkeeper like 'Buddy' [Marcus Hahnemann], you're going to be comfortable with teams playing in front of you," he said.

"Teams can have the ball in front of you but they've got to have an end product - they've got to score goals."

He added: "We know that we can hit teams on the break as well - they can have a lot of ball but as soon as we win the ball back we have just got so much pace on the break that we are going to hurt teams."