Pearce: We must improve

Reading centre back Alex Pearce has said that some players at the club are not playing well enough, saying they must play better if they are to recover from their current losing streak.

The Royals currently sit in the bottom four as their poor run of form continued last week as they lost 2-0 at home to Watford, which also saw Brian McDermott’s team fail to get a shot on target.

The 22-year old told BBC Radio Berkshire: ‘We’ve had players who haven’t done as well as they could and I think everyone will admit that. Everyone needs to step up their game.’

Reading will face bottom side Doncaster Rovers on Saturday, who themselves haven’t won a league game since March. The Scottish defender has though reiterated that morale in the Royals camp is still high.

‘You might think that losing the games that we have that we’d be down and in a negative mood. But training’s been fantastic and we’ve worked on things we needed to address and everyone’s looking forward to the weekend.’

Pearce is expected to start alongside Kaspars Gorkss, who has had a decent start to his Reading career, putting in some solid performances at the heart of the Reading defence.