Reading fan Jacob Hawley gives his verdict on Tuesday night's defeat against Leeds United. 

The Royals matched Leeds for large parts of the game but ultimately a lack of movement and attacking menace cost them in the end.

A late and narrow 1-0 loss to one of the league’s top sides cannot be considered an awful result, albeit painfully late.

Leeds played the long game, finishing with 67% possession. Their passing was slick and well-drilled, although occasionally over-done.

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For the most part Reading were able to combat Leeds’ attacks, they looked fairly organised out of possession and prevented the away side from any real goalscoring opportunities in the first half.

Prior to Stuart Dallas’ rocket that struck the crossbar in the 64th minute, Leeds showed a reluctancy to shoot - often taking one touch too many or playing one more pass. From then onwards, it was merely a case of hanging on for Reading.

Leeds became less patient and more piercing towards the end of the game and it turned to nail-biting stuff for the home fans. When Reading did have the ball, they played relatively poorly.

The first 20 minutes were fairly well-matched, Leeds played a very high back line and when they rarely conceded possession Reading were able to counter quickly by spreading the play and finding the gaps, but not effectively enough.

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The Royals never offered each other much support and that would be fine if there was 11 Ovie Ejaria’s!

However, Liam Moore can’t dribble through the entire Leeds team, meaning the ball went long to Meite and Puscas, who’s hold-up play wouldn’t have won them any awards.

This was not the same Reading side that we have watched at the Mad Stad under Bowen previously. The strong opposition has to be taken into consideration but admittedly the Royals looked void of ideas when in possession, with almost no running off of the ball.

However, Ovie Ejaria was at his best (again), composed as ever and rightly showing off. Every week I ask myself how on earth have we signed him?

His quick feet would beat 3 or 4 men at a time but he then had no team mates supporting him and would be forced to play backwards and start again.

Another uninspiring performance from Puscas is incredibly frustrating for Reading fans. The majority, myself included, want to back him to prove his doubters wrong but he has shown little to get excited about and the same can be said about his performance against Leeds.

Yakou Meite started ahead of Boye but didn’t make anything happen for Reading - a goalscorer he may be but lacking in any meaningful technical ability with the ball at his feet in the second half.

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The return of Chris Gunter was nothing special; he didn’t play particularly well nor poorly for Reading, however he is clearly more of a full-back than a wing-back

Leeds’ goal was a long time in the making and came from a slick counter attack after a Swifty free kick.

As frustrating as it was to concede so late on, Royals fans can’t argue with the result. Leeds were deserving of a winner.

All in all, Reading showed a lot of fight without the ball and remained fairly compact. However, our football when in possession cost us the game - no creativity.

redit to Mark Bowen, I’m sure Reading fans will agree that it would have been a much longer game under Gomes’ management.

Finally, a special mention as well to the Reading and Leeds fans for uniting to applaud in memory of Ryan Duval in the 19th minute.

POTM: Ovie Ejaria.