Reading manager Leam Richardson praised the “lethal” qualities of Jack Marriott as the Royals’ top scorer struck twice in the 2-0 League One win over Notts County.
After a low-key first half, Marriott pounced in the 49th and 72nd minutes – his two headers taking his goal tally for the season to eight in seven matches.
“Jack is brilliant at what he does,” Richardson said. “He’s an absolutely outstanding marksman, he’s lethal.
“But as I’ve said many times before, the work that he does away from the ball, for the team, probably goes amiss.
“He’s like any other striker, who relies on service. And if we can give him the service like we have done, he will score a lot of goals for us.
“We’ve worked hard in the off season with Jack, and he’s worked hard as well, and so fingers crossed that his levels can still go up.”
Reading moved up to eighth place in the table after their third successive league victory at the SCL Stadium.
“Very pleased with the performance, my compliments go to the players,” Richardson said.
“I thought that we started the game quite slowly, we were quite ponderous. It was all a bit bitty until after 20 or 30 minutes.
“But I thought that we took the latter stages of the first half and also the second half and, ultimately, we deserved to win.
“We lacked intensity early on, for the first time here this season, but we ironed a few things out at half time.
“I think that we’re getting more consistency but there is still a lot of room (to grow) in this team.”
Notts County suffered only their second league defeat of the campaign and slipped to 20th spot.
“I thought that we started the game well,” County head coach Martin Paterson said.
“We weren’t dominant but we had some good moments.
“But after coming out after half time, for the next ten minutes, Reading continued their momentum.
“We looked tired, we looked as though we weren’t as energised, which was strange.
“That was possibly a by-product of not taking your chances when they present themselves.
“In the first half, we got to the edge of their area on numerous occasions, but nothing came of it.
“That’s got to be a really big area of improvement for us. Not just the actual action but making their goalkeeper work.
“Over the past three or four games, maybe even more, we’ve needed to work the opposition keeper more.
“That comes down to hard work on the training field.
“We have to learn the lessons at this level. There’s players (like Marriott) who will punish you and we were well punished.”
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