READING FC boss Jaap Stam is backing his players to recover from a 7-1 mauling at Norwich City and finish in the Championship play-offs.
Royals suffered their heaviest loss under Stam after a humbling afternoon at Carrow Road.
The visitors were 6-1 down at the interval and went on to concede seven in the league for the first time in over a decade.
Reading remain fourth in the table and are seven points ahead of seventh-placed Sheffield Wednesday, who host Newcastle United tonight.
Stam declared: "You don't want to lose to a scoreline like this, but of course players don't do it on purpose.
"You are always looking for a reason why this is possible, but sometimes you get these games where nothing works out, where every ball and second ball falls to the opposition's feet.
"Then when every shot you have ends up in a goal it becomes frustrating.
"But we are not where we are in the table by having luck. The players have done very well and worked very hard throughout the season.
"We have won some games by great scores ourselves. It's unfortunate this has happened today, but we still have five very important games to go in order to secure our spot in the top six, and that's what we'll be doing."
Just seen the highlights. The scoreline is bad enough, but the way we conceded every single goal was absolute atrocious. #readingfc
— Olly Allen (@OllyAllen1998) April 8, 2017
Nelson Oliveira's second-minute penalty after a trip by Chris Gunter gave Norwich the lead before Wes Hoolahan added a second on the quarter-hour mark.
Canaries then scored three more in a 10 minute burst, with Russell Martin netting on 31 minutes in between two from Alex Pritchard on 25 and 35 minutes.
Yann Kermorgant pulled one back for the visitors in the 38th minute with his 14th goal of the season only for Hoolahan to net again three minutes later.
A shocking day at the office was rounded off in the 89th minute when Norwich substitute Cameron Jerome put the icing on the cake with their seventh of the game.
How has he managed to score?! #readingfc #ncfc pic.twitter.com/SetHc612sb
— Talk Reading (@TalkReading) April 8, 2017
Stam admitted: "It was an off day. We didn't start well and conceded a penalty straight away.
"You can discuss if it was a penalty or not but you still need to get back into the game.
"We had a couple of things in their box, but we made the wrong choices which summed up the game."
He added: "We just weren't in the game both defensively and in attack. We didn't bring what we should have to the game, we didn't play like we have been playing for the last few games.
"When you come up against a side like Norwich with quality in their team, a lot of changes and players keen to impress and play like we did it is going to be very hard for you."
We're the only team in the top half with a negative goal difference. That's absolutely shocking for a side who are 4th. #readingfc
— One87One (@One87One) April 8, 2017
Stam, though, said he refrained from dishing out the hairdryer treatment to his players at half time after conceding half a dozen goals in the first period.
"Players feel it, they knew how it went. Being very angry doesn't resolve things.
"You talk to the players about what you can do better and how we can score to make the defeat more bearable.
"We tried to fight back in the second half, but they sat back and waited before attacking again. Luckily they didn't score many more."
Reading travel to Aston Villa next Saturday.
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