BRIAN McDermott admitted his Reading FC side let down 3,000 travelling fans in a disappointing 1-0 defeat at struggling MK Dons.

Joe Walsh scored a 78th minute winner for Karl Robinson's Dons, who had been hammered 5-0 at home by Burnley in their previous league fixture.

The defeat left Reading 14th in the Championship table and 11 points adrift of the play-off positions.

McDermott confessed: "It wasn't a good afternoon for us.

“I never saw us losing the game, I didn't think that for one minute.

"It's disappointing because we had nearly 3,000 people out there supporting us.

“We spoke about the fans before the game and how important the fans are to us.

"They turned up in their numbers, and some of those fans have paid an awful lot of money to follow us in three games within the last week.

“We have to have a cause to play for and those fans are why we're here, they are who we are playing for.”

In truth, Reading only had themselves to blame after squandering several goalscoring chances at Stadium mk.

Matej Vydra missed a sitter for the visitors late in the first half and Dons stopper David Martin pulled off important saves to deny Lucas Piazon, Danny Williams, Oliver Norwood and Garath McCleary.

McDermott also felt Kyle McFadzean should have sent off for denying Vydra a clear goalscoring opportunity with 67 minutes gone.

However, referee Charles Breakspear decided a yellow was enough – and McFadzean went on to play a part in Walsh's winning goal only minutes later.

"He should have been off. It's a red card," declared McDermott.

"Vydra is running away from him and it's a certain red card. There's no doubt about that.

"I've seen it back, he's actually going to take a touch inside to take him through one versus one with the goalkeeper.

"The referee may have thought he was going wide, but he wasn't. What's the point in talking to the ref, I just said it's a sending off, he didn't agree. That's it.

"And that's life, sometimes it can kick you. Their goalkeeper played well, he needed to because I think if he didn't, we would have won the game.

"I certainly thought it was going to end 0-0 at very worst, but we got done on the set play, as we did at Wolves, and that's something we need to sort out.”

He added: "We're creating chances which is important. We have to keep putting ourselves in those positions and we have to start scoring them.

"It was a 1-0 game and I thought we would do it. Unfortunately we haven't. They've kept a clean sheet, they've got a 1-0 win. They'll be happy, we're disappointed.”

McDermott resisted the temptation to freshen things up and named an unchanged side from the one that drew 1-1 at Derby County last week.

He argued: "Off the back of the Derby game, where we felt we should have won, we have to find a level of consistency.

"That is what we're trying to do, we have to find that consistency from within us and get the right results.

"I want us to go out there now and play again. But all we can do now is start preparing ourselves for the cup game against Huddersfield Town on Tuesday night."

Reading host the Terriers in an FA Cup third round replay on Tuesday (8pm).

They return to league action this Saturday when they entertain Sheffield Wednesday at Madejski Stadium (3pm).