Burnley 2-1 Reading: Initial Reaction

Injuries continued to blight Nigel Adkins side coming into the game, with Garath McCleary and Billy Sharp both missing from the squad that drew at Barnsley on Tuesday night. Jobi McAnuff did make a return to the starting lineup though, as did Wayne Bridge at left-back, while Jordan Obita also started as Reading went back to a 4-2-3-1 formation.

After a fairly innocuous first 20 minutes a lapse in concentration from the trio of Alex McCarthy, Sean Morrison and particularly Alex Pearce allowed Danny Ings to nip in score his 11th goal of the season.

From there Burnley dominated, and it was only some excellent goalkeeping from McCarthy that was keeping Nigel Adkins side in the game.

Reading tried to change the game with a triple substitution that saw Jake Taylor, Nick Blackman and Adam Le Fondre all introduced but Burnley seemed to kill off the game when their other dangerman, Sam Vokes, netted to make it 2-0 with 10 minutes to go.

At that point you thought the game was dead but Pavel Pogrebnyak forced Jason Shackell into an own goal to give the Royals a late chance of a point.

Unfortunately they couldn't break the resistance of the Championship leaders and results elsewhere mean we'll head into the international break just outside the playoff places.

With the injuries we've had to deal with I can't say I'm surprised at this defeat and just two defeats in our opening 11 games is hardly a dreadful start. We now have two weeks to get players rested and back to full fitness and here's hoping for the start of a new winning run when Doncaster visit the Madejski in two weeks time.

As mentioned Matt Morris will be here with the full report and player ratings tomorrow so return tomorrow to read those thoughts.