JAAP Stam believes Reading FC supporters need to be more 'realistic' about the club's prospects this season.

Royals fans jeered their players during and after the 1-0 home defeat to QPR last week.

It was only the second time this season Stam's men had lost at Madejski Stadium and they remain fourth in the Championship table following a run of nine victories in their last 12 games.

And the Dutchman was eager to send out a strong message to supporters.

“I think we area doing very well,” he declared. “Of course, when you lose there is always negativity.

“I read some of the comments afterwards, but we need to be very realistic.

“With all due respect, we are not playing teams from League 2, we are playing against very good sides and players.

“You want to win games and have a good home record, but you can't win every game.

“Some days you can't produce it or aren't good enough and the opposition plays and defends very well like QPR did last week.

“We played in their half for 80 minutes and we needed to take more and more risk.

“They had those couple of chances on the counter attack and it was hard for us to close everything down.”

The loss to QPR was watched by the lowest league crowd at Madejski Stadium this season after just 12,655 turned up, with heavy snow before kick-off and the fact it was live on television convincing many fans to stay away.

And while Reading put in one of their worst performances of the campaign, Stam brushed off the criticism that followed and told fans to keep things in perspective.

“If people want to be negative, let them be negative,” added Stam, who was forced to rebuild his Royals squad when he joined the club last summer.

“But journalists never write every report of the same quality, plumbers make mistakes and you still have a leak, I've had that as well.

“Everyone needs to be realistic in their job in terms of what they can do and how things are going.”

Meanwhile, new signing Tiago Ilori could make his Reading debut at Derby County this Saturday (3pm ko), while skipper Paul McShane is set to return to the side after recovering from a wrist operation.