Steve Coppell admits that his relationship with Seol Ki-hyeon forced his departure from Reading.
Korean was desperate to leave Reading
Steve Coppell admits that his relationship with Seol Ki-hyeon forced his departure from Reading.
The Royals chief has revealed that Seol grew frustrated at the lack of first-team opportunities ahead of his move to Fulham on transfer deadline day.
"Well to be honest I think I would probably say that to a certain extent I lost Seol last season by not playing him regularly," Coppell told the club's website.
"He is a confident player, he felt he should have been playing every game. Also by bringing him off in a few games when he felt he shouldn't have been brought off.
Strained
"Our relationship was affected by that and it became fairly obvious I think, from the end of last season, that he wanted to move on.
"It wasn't perhaps said in the open but in the chats we had I knew where he was coming from, and where he wanted to go, and that was Fulham, that was obvious from last season.
"There is a big Korean community by their training ground and he wanted to live there. He spent a lot of time there when he was living in Reading so to make the best of the situation we got in dialogue with Fulham and certain deals were mooted."
Happy with deal
Coppell revealed that taking Liam Rosenior in part-exchange for Seol suited Reading.
"In the end Liam was offered in a straight swap and we thought, in an ideal world Seol would have stayed, I wanted him to stay and I told him that, but his heart was elsewhere and when the deal was put to me, I am getting an under 21 international," he said.
"He is English so he's not going to be disappearing for games on the other side of the planet.
"He is a young man who wants to prove himself and it just seemed to be the right move. He has come in now and to a certain extent he has come into an unfamiliar situation.
"He has got to find his feet very quickly. This two-week gap has given him the opportunity to get to know us all or most of us, and we will see what he can contribute to us."
