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Paul Clement could not hide his frustrations as Reading suffered a third straight defeat to open the Championship season.
A second-half strike from Yanic Wildschut was enough for Bolton Wanderers to claim all three points with a 1-0 win at Madejski Stadium as the Royals sit with no points after three games for the first time since 1959.
Reading had chances through Yakou Meite and John Swift, but rarely threatened after falling behind in the 48th minute and Clement pulled no punches in his post-match press conference.
On the defeat…
My feeling is it’s impossible we don’t win that game today, never mind draw it. Very, very frustrated. Frustrated with the line-up that I chose, the way I’ve coached the players going into the game so with myself and also frustrated with the players. Their inability to create chances and also the nature of the goal we conceded is just not acceptable.
On the goal…
They cannot score from that position. It’s a throw-in, it’s a chance to get organised, compact and a big lapse of concentration, exactly the thing I said at half-time, this is a team that might not have a lot of the ball, might not be silky on the eye but they can score a goal at any moment, from a mistake, from a set play, from a long ball and a knock-down. That’s what happened and then everyone behind the ball, sitting on the edge of their box with six at the back. They’ve got the three in midfield and the striker up there for the out balls, he fought away all game and we couldn’t find what you need in that situation, which is a bit of real quality. Either quality of the players combining together to make a chance or some individual quality, someone that is going to split the defence apart with a pass or someone that is going to produce a bit of one v one on the sides and a really good cross. It’s just not good enough.
On getting a first win soon…
The margins are small in all the games but I’m not going to sit here and say we’re unlucky. We’re not unlucky. We’re joint bottom of the table because we haven’t been good enough in each of the three games. In each instance we can look at things that we were not good enough at. We’ve got to turn that around quickly. We’ve got to get a result quickly.
On the reaction to the goal…
The team has inherently lost a lot of games over a long period of time. It’s almost like here we go again, we’re behind and we’ve been behind a lot and not got back into games. That is running through the team but we’ve got to get through that, we’ve got to be mentally tough to deal with adversity. You’ve got to use adversity to make you stronger and better and at the moment the games are ticking by and we’ve not done that. We should win that game today.
On if he’s planning to make changes for midweek…
Maybe. I still have a lot of confidence in the players and they are trying hard. There’s no question of that. But just trying hard is not enough, we have to do more. I have to do more to help the players find solutions to some of the issues we’re having.
On the injury to Mo Barrow…
It’s not serious. All being well we’d hope he’ll be available very soon, hopefully for the next game.
On still being without a point…
Today was a chance to kick-start our season in the league and I think we’ve missed a massive opportunity. Now we’ve got two very, very tough away games.
On the atmopshere being flat…
That’s down to the players. It was flat because of what they’re watching. We moved the ball too slow, we weren’t creative enough. We didn’t give the fans enough to get out their seats and get behind the team. And the end you get the boos and that’s normal. I felt like booing myself, booing what I saw and booing me because I’m really, really disappointed. We have to do much better in games like that.
On leaving out Tiago Ilori…
He’s disappointed about not playing. I would expect that. He wasn’t left out of the team for performance reasons. It was more about what we’ve already done and what we’ve got coming up. We’ve got five games in 15 days and this was the first one. You have to use the squad but I accept that point (of Ilori feeling hard done by).
On feeling the pressure…
I’m putting the pressure on myself. I have to do better, I have to coach this team better. I’m going to put the pressure on the players to make sure they’re doing better. I don’t need anyone to tell me I need to do better or the team need to do better. I don’t need anybody. I know myself.
On links with making a loan signing…
When I say an offensive or attacking player, it doesn’t necessarily mean a striker. It could be a wide player, who has to defend. That’s what I think it will be. A wide player, who has to defend as well as attack. I’m hopeful that will be this week.
