Brian: We play for the fans

Reading manager Brian McDermott dedicated yesterday’s victory at QPR to the fans, following a string of poor performances in the previous two games.

A very good Reading following of around 1,500 fans made the trip to Loftus Road and were treated to a superb game in the Capital One Cup third round. Twice the Royals found themselves behind in the game against a strong Rangers side, but bounced back thanks to goals from Kaspars Gorkss and Nicky Shorey, before Pogrebnyak scored the winner.

Speaking to the Official Reading FC website, the former Slough boss said: ‘Whatever team we put out, has to be a ‘Reading’ team. That’s important. I feel we’ve let our fans down a little bit in the last two games and I hate doing that. So tonight has been a good night for our fans – and that’s who we play for.’

‘We talked a lot about the identity of our team and this week has been a case of stripping us back to what we’re about. I think you saw what we are about in the very first two or three minutes of the game, the way we closed down, the tempo of our game, everything we did. All our players worked really, really hard all night and I’m so proud of them.’