Brian McDermott is dedicating more and more time to scouting as we formulate our plans for the January window.

Brian has a dual role as Chief Scout and Reserve Team Manager, but he is continually passing much of his responsibility for the reserves to coach Nigel Gibbs.

McDermott is always flying off around the world looking at potential new faces, and he explained to readingfc.co.uk, "Nigel does all the training with the reserves now.

"I'm in the dressing room with him for the reserves games when I can get there.

"Last week for example I was out every weeknight, then France at the weekend.

"The weekend before that I was in Denmark, so we are doing our work and we have a lot of scouts throughout.

"It's not just Europe now but all over the world. 

"We are really doing our work and making sure that if the gaffer wants to do something in January then we have options. That's obviously the majority of my work now.

"We just have to make sure we know who is available and what players we can get.

"The gaffer is saying he would like that to happen so we will have to wait and see.

"The scouts are out there working really, really hard, and I think it was a massive, massive result for us against Derby. That has given everyone at the club a lift.

"I think if anybody comes into England, to any Premiership club, we will know about them.

"You look at Elano, we knew him, Nick knew him. So it's come on leaps and bounds in the last three or four years on the scouting side."