Garry Monk has called for his Wednesday squad to stick together after another punchless performance saw us go down 3-0 at home to a mediocre Reading side and so stretch our shocking run to just one win in 10 Championship games.
Speaking after the latest defeat at a rain-lashed and windswept Hillsborough, Monk said: “Every day is a tough day at the moment. It’s a difficult period for us and it’s a cycle we don’t seem to be able to break.
“I’m trying everything I can and working hard to break the cycle but it is not changing at the moment
“The key is to keep on fighting and to stick together.”
He added: “I said to the players afterwards that the fans could easily, and quite rightly so, have been on their backs from the very start and then at the end. But they have stuck behind those players on this type of run as well as you could have ever asked for and that’s what the players need to show themselves.
“They need to stick together and they are the only ones who can get themselves out of this.”
He continued: “I understand the results aren’t good enough, the run we are on is not good enough, there is a lack of confidence and a fragility about us and that hasn’t changed.
“Something needs to change and we need to get out of this cycle.”
After a reasonably bright Wednesday opening, by recent standards anyway, we could count ourselves unfortunate to go one down when Yakou Meite stole through to fire past Cameron Dawson to put Reading ahead with their first real attack on 21 minutes.
However, we rarely troubled the Reading defence in the entire 90 minutes and the dismissal of young defender Osaze Urhoghide for a second yellow card soon after the interval appeared to end any possible thoughts of a Wednesday fightback.
Reading doubled their lead on 72 minutes when George Puscas deflected Andy Yiadom’s long-range shot into the net before Sam Baldock completed another wretched home display – our fourth in a row without a goal at Hillsborough – scoring an injury-time penalty after Dominic Iorfa had brought down Andy Rinomhota.
Dawson, Urhoghide, Iorfa, Börner, Palmer, Harris, Pelupessy (Bannan 46), Lee, Da Cruz (Murphy 56), Forestieri, Nuhiu (Wickham 67). Unused subs: Wildsmith, Lees, Windass, Hunt.
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