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Stam – Improvement Needed After Preston

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Reading slipped to a third straight away defeat after being heavily beaten at play-off hopefuls Preston on Saturday.

Preston recorded a 3-0 victory with a brace from Tom Barkhuizen and another from Daryl Horgan to see North End move to within six points of a place in the top six. If home keeper Chris Maxwell had not denied Garath McCleary – before the first goal – things could have been different?

Fortunately Reading still have a small cushion on Sheffield Wednesday with them between is and Fulham so it isn’t the Royals’ place immediately in danger. Therefore despite this heavy defeat we remain in fifth place but are now only four points above a Fulham side that’s pushing hard for a place in the play-offs.

Looking back at this away defeat – meaning Reading have lost three away games in a row under Jaap Stam for the first time – the boss said he’s aware improvement on what was seen at the weekend is needed.

Speaking in his post-match news conference he was quoted by the BBC as saying.

‘Everybody knows where we are, if you want to stay there, you need to defend and play in a certain way with a certain aggression and it’s not only now towards the end of the season, it’s the whole season because this is a tough league.’

He went on to again stress it’ll be difficult for Reading to finish in the top six but knows if ‘we keep on winning’ we’ll manage this.

‘It’s very difficult to stay in the top six. All the teams, they want to stay up there, they want to do well, we do as well. I’m not interested in other teams, I’m focusing on our team, what we need to do and what we need to improve. If we keep on winning then we still can end up there and we need to be aware of that as well.’

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