LEWIS Grabban is confident his 16-month wait for a league goal is about to end.

The 29-year-old on-loan Bournemouth forward has failed to hit the back of the net in 26 league fixtures since he scored for Norwich City in a 1-1 draw against Arsenal in November 2015.

Grabban wasted a golden opportunity to end his barren run less than a minute into Tuesday’s 0-0 stalemate against Championship leaders Newcastle United.

A cross from Garath McCleary fell perfectly for the Bournemouth loanee who had made a darting run to the far post, but his powerful header drifted wide of Karl Darlow’s post.

Reading Chronicle:

Karl Darlow denies Grabban's effort on goal.

But Grabban, who has been mostly deployed in midfield and on the right by manager Jaap Stam, believes the goals will soon come.

“I haven’t played a lot of games since scoring in the league,” he insisted.

“If I had played 100 games since I last scored then I would be worried but I haven’t so it’s only a matter of time before it comes.

“I’ve played quite a lot on the wing throughout my career so it’s not necessarily frustrating. The manager opted to put me on the right against Newcastle and I thought I did well.

“Obviously I want to be up there scoring goals, but you can still score goals from the wing.

“We aren’t all rooted to one position, we can rotate and that’s a good thing because we can move fluidly around the pitch.”

Royals will have little time on the training pitch before they travel north on Friday in preparation for their match against Preston North End the following day.

And Grabban insists Reading will need a positive result at Deepdale to maintain their strong position in the play-offs.

“All the games are tough now,” he concluded. “It’s important for us to get as many points as possible and that’s what we’ll be looking to do this Saturday.”