Clement: "We have to buck our ideas up"
A disappointing second half display dealt a defeat to the Royals on the road this afternoon and Royals boss Paul Clement was clear in his expectation of much more from his set of players after the game.
"I’m disappointed with the manner of the performance. In football, you can lose games – but I wasn’t happy with the way we lost. We have to do better than that," he began.
"Some of the things that I saw in the first half were quite positive, the shape looked quite good and we limited them to very few clear cut chances. We had a couple of chances ourselves before going behind.
"I came in at half time and discussed with the players that if we played better in certain situations, then we could get back into the game.
"The first half was quite even, but in the second half, the manner of their two goals, the nature of the defending for those two goals was really poor. Then we've got a massive uphill task and at 3-0 down it’s difficult get anything out of the game."
"I’ve spoken to the players. The second half performance was not at the level we expected, nowhere near good enough.
"We've got to buck our ideas up. Because if we play like we did in the second half today, we're going to be in trouble.
"We have to stop relying on results elsewhere, we have to get our own game in order. Games are running out and we have to get a win. Because if you're relying on other results you're playing a really dangerous game.
"And we have to move on quickly. We’ve got two games to go and we need to win one of those games.
"Ipswich is a massive game next weekend and the players have to turn it around in front of our home fans next weekend. We’ve been doing well at home since I’ve been here, we’ve won two and drawn one and next Saturday at home will be vital.
"We need to leave the disappointing performance here. We’ve had words in the dressing room already about the manner of the defeat and now everything is about focusing on Ipswich next week."