Wally Praises Royals DIsplay

After watching Reading destroy Sheffield Wednesday at the Madejski Stadium, Royals coach Wally Downes had nothing but praise for the players and the performance.

He said: ‘It was just a terrific performance.

‘When you go 3-0 up before half time, against respected professionals, they’re going to come out and have a go at you. Sometimes you think it’s not going to be as good second half, but we stayed on the front foot and that was really pleasing from my point of view.’

‘The way we played at Ipswich on Saturday was below the standard that the players have set themselves. It doesn’t matter what we say to them or how the fans react or what the media say, they have got their own standards that they set every day.

‘If they dip below those levels then teams will punish them. When they get back on track and play like we did tonight, we punish teams. They have the responsibility squarely on their shoulders to perform like that every time they cross the white lines.

‘It’s a matter of needing to replicate that every Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday…throughout their footballing lives wherever they are. They need to perform equally well away from home as they do here. It’s not a problem yet – it’s just a little statistic. We haven’t cracked it away from home so far, but that’ll change and certainly they are the ones who’ll have to do that.’

Wally was pleased to see the partnership of Andre Bikey and Alex Pearce in action, ‘The only problem came in that it was a late change – I had no qualms about playing Pearcey or Bikey at any time.

‘It’s the squad that’s going to be successful, not eleven single players. We don’t rely on any single player, and if anyone comes out of the side we’ve got players who can slot right in – and you saw that tonight.’