PAUL Clement has challenged his players to back up their Bristol City win with victory against Ipswich Town this Saturday (3pm ko).

Royals defeated the Robins 3-2 in a five-goal thriller last weekend for their second home win in a row.

But Clement’s men are yet to claim successive victories in the league this season, a statistic the Reading manager is keen to resolve.

Reading remain 22nd in the table but will start as firm favourites against rock-bottom Ipswich.

Clement said: “It’s interesting how you can frame something and it looks good or frame something else and it looks bad.

“Three wins out of four at home is a good statistic whereas earlier in the season it was no wins in four which was poor.

“It was good to win on Saturday, but we’ve got to back it up now with another good result.

“We haven’t managed to do that all season, so all the focus now is on Ipswich Town this weekend.

“Let’s see if we can get back-to-back wins for the first time this season, that would be great.”

Ipswich are five points adrift at the bottom after a 1-1 home draw with Preston last weekend.

Reading Chronicle:

Reading boss, Paul Clement.

Tractor Boys have already changed manager this season with Paul Lambert now in charge following the sacking of Paul Hurst after 15 games.

Clement added: “We are playing a team who are bottom and we have a chance to go eight points ahead of them.

“I’m sure that is we do win next weekend we will climb out of the bottom three.

“Overall, I was very pleased with the commitment of the players against Bristol City and I think it showed we are still all together. We suffer together and we’re still fighting to improve.

“Training this week will be similar to last week and we still need to work on our defensive structure so players know exactly what their jobs are.”

Leandro Bacuna grabbed a 66th-minute winner against the Robins after first-half goals from Yakou Meite and Liam Kelly were cancelled out by Marlon Pack and Josh Brownhill.

And under-fire Clement joked the victory meant he keeps his job for another week at least.

“A lot of pressure has been building because of performances and results, so it’s a really good feeling to win at home and hopefully we can use it as a bit of a springboard now which is something we haven’t managed to do so far this season,” he explained.

Clement, though, is dealing with a mounting injury list with Jon Dadi Bodvarsson ruled out for at least six weeks with a broken bone in his back.

Fellow striker Yakou Meite – with four goals in his last four games – limped off in the first half against Bristol City, while goalkeepers Vito Mannone and Anssi Jaakkola, midfielders Saeid Ezatolahi and Dave Edwards plus full-backs Jordan Obita and Omar Richards are all sidelined.

However, Adrian Popa and Pelle Clement have recovered from knocks and should rejoin training this week.