Emerse Faé has almost certainly played his last match for Reading after delivering a stinging criticism of Steve Coppell, the manager. The Ivory Coast midfield player was fined two weeks’ wages and suspended for a fortnight after he refused to play in the reserve-team game against Tottenham Hotspur on Monday.

Faé, the club’s record signing, and Ibrahima Sonko, the defender similarly punished for the same misdemeanour, will miss the last two matches of the season, at home to Tottenham tomorrow and away to Derby County a week on Sunday, with Reading one point above the relegation zone.

Faé claimed that the club accepted his decision on Sunday not to play in the reserve match and told him to return to training on Thursday, but he received a letter a couple of days later saying he was suspended and fined. “That is not clever at all to suspend your own players,” Faé said. “Those people do not speak and do things behind your back. They wrote to me but were not courageous enough to tell me things man to man.”

Faé has started only three league matches since joining from Nantes for £2.5 million last summer. Coppell said yesterday: “It’s an internal disciplinary measure and it’s been dealt with.”