JAAP STAM believes his Reading side can still “show a lot more” despite easing past Barnsley 3-0 at Madejski Stadium on Tuesday evening.
Goals from Dave Edwards, Joey van den Berg and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson sealed the comfortable win over the Tykes, which extends Royals’ unbeaten run to three matches following draws against Bolton Wanderers and Sheffield Wednesday.
PODCAST: Tom and Olly preview the Sunderland clash
Reading could move into the Championship top half if they win at struggling Sunderland on Saturday and Stam is keen to keep pushing his team.
“The performance against Barnsley wasn’t as good as the last couple of weeks,” said the Royals boss.
“But sometimes not playing your best football but still winning your games is very important and we had that quite often last season as well.
“Of course we’re very pleased with the result. We’re always very critical in our performance and we’re always talking about details and what we need to do better.
“I think we could’ve done better (against Barnsley). In my opinion I think we can show a lot more and I think in the opinion of the team as well.
“We raise the bar and we set certain standards in what we can do and that’s what we need to do.”
Attention now turns to the long trip to Sunderland, who have not won at home in 2017 and sit in the relegation zone, but did pick up their first victory under new boss Chris Coleman last time out.
And Stam says the Black Cats are adopting a new style of play to the early part of the season.
“We all know that Sunderland have got a very good team,” he said.
“They still have great players, they’ve got a new manager, an experienced manager that has done very well with Wales so he’s probably going to make some changes in how he plays.
“He’s already done that because with the previous manager (Simon Grayson) they played a different style, 4-3-3 or 4-1-4-1.
“They try to play out from the back now as well if you give them time. In the previous couple of months it was totally different.
“That’s good to see and it brought them a result last week as well.
“They’ve had a whole week to work on it whereas we had a game on Tuesday, so we need to get our players as fit and sharp as possible for Saturday’s game, which is not going to be easy.”
One man Reading are likely to come up against is Lewis Grabban.
The Sunderland striker spent six months on loan with the Royals last season, scoring three goals, and he featured in both legs of the play-off semi-final before starting the final at Wembley.
And he has found his prolific scoring streak for the struggling Black Cats this season, netting 10 goals in his 16 appearances.
“For us sometimes he scored great goals and he was important in a certain role,” said Stam.
“At Sunderland he’s been playing mainly every game and scoring goals as well.
“You could see the quality that he has with his pace, always running from the shoulders of the defenders and getting that ball and then going in behind.
“He is a goalscorer and he’s scored for them so we know what we can expect with him when we play against him.
“Hopefully we can defend him well.”
Reading have no fresh injury concerns ahead of the trip north but the game comes too soon for Garath McCleary, John Swift and Sam Smith, who are all closing in on a return to fitness.
