STEVE Clarke was left to rue silly mistakes from his side as Reading slipped to an undeserved defeat at Birmingham City.

Goals from Dave Cotterill and Jon Toral were enough for Gary Rowett's side, with Nick Blackman's header proving to be nothing more than a consolation after Orlando Sa saw his added-time penalty saved.

The Royals controlled long periods of the game but Clarke was left annoyed by his side gifting the hosts soft goals – a similar tale to last season.

“Three or four mistakes have cost us in a difficult game,” he said. “Birmingham at home are always a strong outfit but we switched off at key moments.

“I thought we did ok in long periods. We controlled the game for long periods until we conceded a soft goal from a free-kick.

“We didn't react to that very well and the five minutes leading into half-time we looked a little bit nervous and a little bit ragged for the first time that game.

“If you concede a goal you want it to be a good goal. The second goal was a mistake as Michael Hector fell over the ball.

“It was a decent cross and a decent header so they'll be happy with that one but for us it was stupid to find ourselves 2-0 down in a game where we were by far the better team.”

Reading were dealt a further blow when Aaron Tshibola's effort looked to have crossed the line but wasn't given, though Clarke refused to use that as an excuse for the defeat.

“My initial impression was it looked over the line but I don't know,” he added. “That's not the key thing, the key thing is that at the important moments we didn't control the game.

“For some reason in this league you don't get goal-line technology, it only counts for one league in England.

“It's wrong. These decisions should be goal or no goal. I've not seen the replay, my initial reaction was that the movement of the ball looked like it went down [over the line] then came back out.”