Everything Veljko Paunovic said after Reading lost to West Brom

On his side's performance...

I think not a great first half although we did have a big chance to take the lead. I didn’t like that we conceded that much possession. I didn’t like that we didn’t create more. But still, we had that big chance and it’s an unfortunate outcome.

I think we have to be much more clinical and much more ruthless when we have these kinds of chances to turn around the game and get the momentum. I wasn’t happy about the first half but the second half, after some adjustments, after changing our mentality, getting more on the ball, getting more in the final third, I think in the second half we looked better and we got the opposite outcome. One of the counter-attacks we weren’t capable to foul or delay we let the opposition come too easily in our final third and execute.

So that’s the only negative I found in the second half and I’ll just add that we needed more passes in the final third, more entrances in the box. But given the circumstances, I think this is not a bad performance but definitely not the result we wanted.

On Reading having no shots on target...

I think I just covered that. We didn’t have enough entrances, we weren’t clinical, we didn’t have enough passes in the final third.

The aftermath of Robinson's winning goal. Image by: JasonPIX

On the absences of John Swift and Danny Drinkwater...

I think that’s one of the keys for our lack of attacking power. We were missing four players, four important players from last game. Andy Yiadom, his energy, Danny Drinkwater, John Swift, Femi Azeez…and it just adds to our long list of injuries. The adjustments we needed to do were later in the week but still, I’m very happy with the guys who showed up today and gave their best. The one that I would mention is Tyrell Ashcroft. He did a very good job. I know he played a very good game against Millwall also but it’s great to see he’s capable of putting out consistent performances.

On the extent of Swift's injury...

We don’t know. He might be ready for Luton. It’s a soft-tissue injury but it’s small grade so we expect that he might be available for Luton.

On Reading now beg just two points above the drop zone...

I think the mentality that I’ve seen here is always negative and I hate that in my environment talking about that so what I’m gonna answer is we’re going to keep fighting and looking higher up the table. That’s where we have to project ourselves. There is no space or time for negativity. We are where we are, we know why we are here, and we’re trying to fix it so we need positivity.

On struggling to play out from. the back...

I think first half we conceded too much and didn’t have courage to play out from the back. Was it because of their intensity or maybe other issues? Change of personnel due to injuries? Some of the payers we lost late in the week and it was difficult for us to put out a plan that we could work on with time. It’s what it is. I don’t there’s anything we can change now in terms of how we played or what we could’ve done. All we can do is think about preparing our team for the upcoming game against Luton which is a big game, the celebration of our anniversary, and I’m expecting to have our crowd come to the stadium.

On the pressure of Saturday's huge anniversary game against Luton...

We are going to use that as you say pressure, I’m going to say motivation, as a catalyst to prepare our team in the right direction.

On Luke Southwood's performance...

I think there were some very good individual performances today and that tells you we have the capacity and now we just need to put all the pieces back together. Before today they were there. But one thing we can not ignore is that there’s more than a starting 11 injured, we’re figuring it out and the guys are doing a great job. These are the circumstances we have to live with and work with.