Reading FC manager Paul Ince admitted that he was ‘embarrassed’ by his team’s second-half performance in their defeat to Nottingham Forest.
The Royals conceded after just 17 seconds and collapsed in the second-half where they conceded four more.
“I’m very disappointed with the second half. It was embarrassing,” said Ince.
“We see how this team leaks goals, we’ve got a soft underbelly. That’s why we are where we are.
“You set up a game plan and 18 seconds gone, it’s out of the window. You can’t concede goals after 18 seconds.
“After that, we were brilliant in the first-half; they never had a shot.
“We had two wonderful chances with Morro (Morrison) the captain and Josh (Laurent) who I thought was outstanding for his first game back.
“When we lost the second goal, we capitulated. You can’t be like that.
“This is a team that spent the last two years playing lovely football and all of a sudden they’re in a dog fight.
I’ve told them, forget all the tippy tappy crap you’ve been doing for the last few years, it’s not working.
“You have to roll your sleeves up and fight and there weren’t enough of them that did that.
“It’s hard to change players’ mentality. I’m embarrassed for the fans that came here.
“The fans stuck with us and know the situation. I’ve told the lads in no uncertain terms I’m not having that in the second half. I’m not happy with it one bit.”
Ince was critical of the way his side ‘capitulated’ in the second-half and urged his team to fight for their chance to stay in the Championship.
He continued: “They’ve got to learn quickly with 10 games to go and we’ve got some tough games coming up.
“We’re not digging in when we got two goals down and if you don’t dig in, you know where you’re going to be.
“The second half annoys me, it winds me up.
“I’ve told the lads they need to dig in for the fans, for the staff.
“Some of these players won’t be here next year, a lot of them are free agents (in the summer).
“Whether they care or not I don’t know, but I do.
“They might swan off next year at different clubs, but there are people here and staff that will be out of jobs.
“So I suggest they all roll their sleeves up and when they do leave, leave with a bit of credit and say they’ve kept this club in the league.”
