STEVE Davis came through yesterday's training session in the pouring rain and could be set for a return to the Oxford United side for the Division 2 derby at Reading.

Tomorrow morning's live SKY match at the Madejski Stadium (11am) is being regarded as the acid test for caretaker manager Mickey Lewis.

A win and his chances of getting the job full time will rocket, but should United lose heavily, Firoz Kassam may take gre- ater note of those he is planning to interview next week.

There has also been interest in how brave Lewis would be with selection. Does he stick to the team which disappointingly only drew 1-1 at home to Colchester, or make changes?

"There will be a couple," he said, "but I don't want to say what they will be to give Reading any advantage."

Davis may be one of them. He could replace Phil Whelan who, although better against Colchester, was poor against Morecambe in the Cup.

The other possibility is that Lewis plays both Davis and Whelan, because Mark Watson has been troubled by injury. Another change might be to give Swedish keeper Paul Lundin a go in place of South African Andre Arendse.

Reading, unbeaten in four, are waiting to see whether striker Nicky Forster, who has missed three matches with an ankle injury, suffers any reaction to training.

"They're starting to do a lot better, so it will be a tough match for us," Lewis said. "But the Madejski Stadium is a place people like to play at.

"Because of the weather, I didn't want the players hanging around too much in training yesterday but from what they showed me, we've got some quality players."

Asked whether the problem, however, was that United didn't have players who put the ball in the net, Lewis responded: "Yes, partly, but it's at the other end too. Some of us have been panicking a bit and we've been working on trying to stop that."

Story date: Saturday 06 November

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.