READING (AFP) - Reading boss Steve Coppell admits he'll be forced to make wholesale changes if his struggling team are to salvage their Premier League status.

The Royals remain third from bottom and in the drop zone after a 2-1 home defeat to Aston Villa on Sunday, a result which left them still without a league point since December 26.

It was also a club record eighth successive league defeat.

"I really don't know what we can do. It is not as though I am keeping anything in reserve for such an occasion," said Coppell, who takes his team to Middlesbrough next week where they will be searching for a first away win of the season.

"I feel as though we have more potential in the squad than is actually being shown on a weekly basis but I just don't know.

"This season has been frustrating for me personally. There is more in this squad but for whatever reason it is not coming out. I really don't know why.

"People talk about confidence and if there was such a thing as a confidence injection I would give them one.

"I feel I have been too loyal to some players in the squad and it might just be that there will be four or five changes for the next game. The ones on the outside of the team must be hellishly frustrated as the ones who are playing at the moment just aren't delivering."

Goals from Ashley Young and substitute Marlon Harewood pushed Villa closer to Champions League qualification and they are now level on points with their two main rivals for fourth place, Liverpool and Everton.

Nicky Shorey pulled one back in stoppage time direct from a free-kick for Reading.

Villa manager Martin O'Neill hailed strikers John Carew and the fit-again Gabriel Agbonlahor who were instrumental in the win while the Midlanders could also afford the luxury of a first half penalty miss by Gareth Barry.

"At 1-0 as Reading were pressing for an equaliser so anything could have happened but Marlon came up trumps again, as he has done on three out of four occasions when he has come off the bench," said O'Neill.

"Young was class. When Gabby rolled the ball across to him he still had to control it and when the goalie comes diving out he still has to put it past him. He took the goal brilliantly.

"Gabby was a handful and although he has done some light training this week that was nothing like a match so to see the game through was particularly pleasing.

"When Marlon came on he went wide right as he is capable of defending and that is the great thing about Agbonlahor and Young - they can drop into a position and if they pick it up from deep they are capable of going 30 or 40 yards with the ball.

"And Carew was immense. Playing like that, he is as good as there is. I have often said he doesn't realise how good he is. He had two decent opportunities early on - he knocked one across the box and blazed one over the bar - but John Carew now is full of self-confidence - as much as I believe he has ever had - and he was absolutely incredible."