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Paul Clement has called on Reading to use their win over Bristol City as a springboard.
The Royals remain in the relegation zone despite the 3-2 success, but have closed the gap to the sides above them.
They now have a full week to prepare to host rock-bottom Ipswich Town next Saturday as they seek to clinch back-to-back wins for the first time this season.
Here is what the Royals boss said after the game.
On the win…
I think it’s a really important result for the club. With everyone involved right from our owners through to me and ultimately the players, there was a lot of pressure. There has been a lot of pressure building because of the performances and the results, which is normal so a really, really good feeling to win at home and hopefully we can use it as a little bit of a springboard now, which is something we’ve not managed to do so far this season.
On the players giving everything…
I thought the commitment was brilliant to try and get the result. The margins are very fine. At the end they’ve had a couple of good attempts, they’re right in and around our goal, they’ve hit the post, we’ve got a couple of vital blocks in. The players stood up when it counted and you’ve got to do that. We’ve led twice, they’ve come back twice, didn’t let it affect us, continued to attack and I think from an attacking point of view that’s three goals today. We are scoring regularly. Our goalscoring record compared to all other Championship teams is sound. The issue we’ve got is defensively. A couple of mistakes today make it much closer than really it should be. I think when we manage to really address the defensive side, I think we will start to climb the table.
On the fans sticking with the team today…
I think the Reading fans are really fair and honest, I have to say. If they see their team not doing well, they let them know but they are patient with it as well. They don’t get onto their backs straightaway and if they see that their team and their players are giving absolutely everything and I said that to the players, if you do that, if you give the effort and the commitment fans will get behind you and they did. They were great, really good.
On speculation surrounding his job…
I think I can stay another week, which is nice! I think it was important today. We just lost the last two games, we are still in the bottom three. Our position in the table has not changed but it’s made it a little bit tighter. We’re not getting stranded down at the bottom. Now we play a team that are bottom and we’ve got a chance of going eight points ahead of bottom. I’m sure if we win next weekend we will climb out of the bottom three, I’m sure of it. But overall very pleased with the commitment of the players. I think it showed that we’re altogether. We’ve suffered together and we’re still fighting to improve.
On what he said to the players at half-time having been pegged back twice…
I said to the players that about 80 per cent of the things that we’ve done are really good but we’ve made two big errors. It’s gone now, we’ve got the second half, we’ve got to try and treat the game as a 0-0, if we can still concentrate and do the right things defensively we will create and we will score and that’s the way it ended up.
On Andy Rinomhota’s first league start…
I thought he played really well. He’s had to be patient for his opportunity and he has been but he’s a fantastic professional and boy. Every day really committed to learning, improving and giving his best. He’s a credit to this club, the academy, his family. I’m sure they were very proud to see him. I know when he came on in his other two appearances that he didn’t have family there. I think he was surprised, they were only short appearances but still today that was great. I think his mum and dad were here today to see him. He got a nice ovation when he went off and I thought it was thoroughly deserved.
On Sam Walker coming in and playing well…
I can’t say enough that goalkeeper department at the moment with what they’re dealing with. One comes in, does well, gets injured, next one’s ready and they’re supporting each other really well. I have three good first team goalkeepers.
On Yakou Meite’s injury…
He’s hurt his ankle. I don’t know the severity of it yet. I don’t think it’s bad because he managed to carry on for a little while. But it wasn’t obviously good enough to stay on. He tried. He was devastated coming off. He scored his goal, he’s leading the line as the club’s striker so he was really disappointed but a valuable goal for us.
On Bodvarsson’s injury…
He had a CT scan on his back yesterday. We’re waiting for the results of that. I think best case scenario is probably going to be about six weeks for him, that’s the best case. If the CT scan shows the position of the injury is not so good then it could be longer. That’s the timeframe we’re looking at in the best case scenario but it could turn out to be longer. When I have that news I’ll let you know.
On the goals in the team…
We’ve scored one from our holding midfielder today, one from one of our more offensive midfielders and one from the striker. So it’s good. I have to be generally pleased with what we’re doing on the offensive side. We haven’t scored every game but I think we’re doing better on that side than the defensive side, team defending. We’ll continue to work at that, we’ll do it next week as well.
On the defensive problems at the end of the first half…
I think it was a tactical mistake. I don’t think it was a physical mistake. I thought we got a bit deep. As they went long with the ball we lost the first header and then we lost the knockdown and then it went wide, as it went wide we got a bit deep so I think things that you can sort out on the training ground and we’ll try and do that.
On the emotion at half-time in the dressing room…
It’s like it normally is. The players are normally just trying to catch their breath when they come in at half-time. I give them four or five minutes to do that and I think about what I’m going to say because what I say at half-time is very important. We went through things we’ve got to do a little bit better and things that we did alright and try and reinforce those things. It worked out this game.
On Mo Barrow coming back into the team…
I think he did well. Most of the game he played on the right, he normally plays on the left. I quite liked him there. I think it gives him a little bit more freedom to come inside and join in a little bit more with the play on the left. He can get stuck out on the line quite a lot so I put the wingers on the other sides and McCleary I also thought was good when we came on. It was a difficult decision today not just with the line-up but also with the bench. It was really difficult to select the right balance because there’s players that are actually doing well in training but not even making the 18. They’re all working hard and they’re pushing, that’s important.
On how he’ll approach the next week…
I think when I look back at what we did this week, it will be very similar to what we do next week. The days we’re off, where we do our strong days, where we do our lighter days, the content of the work needs to be similar. We still need to work on our defensive structure, making sure people are really clear about what their jobs are. I think it’ll be similar to that, rather than going back. It’ll be similar to last week rather than the weeks leading into Preston or Hull for example.
On the good recent home form…
It’s interesting how you can frame something and it looks good and then you frame it another way and it looks bad. But that is a statistic, three wins from four at home. Earlier in the season it was none in how many wasn’t it. It was poor. It’s good, good that we’re winning at home. We’ve got to back it up, that’s the important thing. That’s what we’ve not managed to do all season, back a good result up with another good result. All the focus now is on next week and let’s see if for the first time this season we can go back-to-back wins, it would be great.
