It's safe to say that Nelson Oliveira made a real impact in his loan spell with Championship side Reading last season. 

The Royals were in serious danger of being relegated into League One after a number of poor showings throughout the 2018/19 campaign.

But Oliveira and a number of other Premier League loanees arrived in the January transfer window to help steer the Berkshire-based club to safety for another season in the second tier.

However, his impact wasn't the main talking point in his time with the Royals, with Oliveira suffering a sickening facial injury against Aston Villa.

Tyrone Mings wasn't sent-off for the incident, although replays did show that there could have been a stamp involved on Oliveira.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Tilehurst End, Oliveira labelled the challenge as 'very bad', and stuck with his verdict on the incident by saying that he wanted to cause harm to him.

"It was a very bad challenge from Tyrone Mings. I don’t believe he’s a bad guy, but sometimes in games there are players, especially defenders, who want to hurt you on purpose. At the time, I felt he wanted to do that. He wanted to hurt my face with his boot.

"To be honest, he doesn’t need this. He’s a great player, a great athlete, strong. Sometimes, some players they just have this inside them that maybe afterwards they regret. I believe he regrets what he did. He texted me saying sorry, so for me it’s done. No problem at all."

Oliveira went on to admit that the FA could have taken more action over the incident, and claimed that if a more reputable player suffered the injury, then there would have been a punishment handed out.

"I thought at the time the federation didn’t take the right decision. It hurt more mentally than physically. I knew I was lucky because it didn’t get my eye, and that in time the scars would get better. But I didn’t like the way the federation reacted. If a player like Harry Kane received the same challenge I did, it would have been different."

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The Verdict: 

I still agree with Oliveira here.

It was a sickening injury to witness, and I'm not convinced that Mings didn't mean it at all. He has had previous with that type of incident as well.

Oliveira made a real impact with Reading in his time with the club, and that was even with him ruled out for a few weeks with this facial injury.

I still think that plenty of Reading supporters would have been keen to see the club make an effort to sign Oliveira permanently at the end of his loan spell.