Clarke: It's Onwards and Upwards

It was a quiet afternoon at the Madejski yesterday with a 0-0 draw against Leeds United. Manager Steve Clarke was pleased with the goalless draw which meant that we now have our first point of the season.

He told the official club website,

"It was two strong teams and nobody was giving anything away - both teams were good defensively. It was a game of very few chances and you're looking for something off a set-play today."

"I think we created the best chance in the second half- Orlando Sa's chance when he went through in the inside-left channel was a big chance, and on another he'd stick it in the net and it'd be a different story."

Clarke found plenty of positives, especially with the good defensive showing and a first league clean sheet.

"The positives are another clean sheet and that the team was solid, and it's one point more than we had out of these two fixtures last year. I know it's only a small crumb, but it's a fact - last year we lost at home to Leeds in a similar game as today." 

We got caught and sucker-punched on the counter-attack a couple of times last year. Last season we lost that type of game and this season it looks as though we're not going to, which is good going forward.

"It's very rare that a team will score three goals every week to win- so if you concede two like we did last week at Birmingham, it becomes difficult. In midweek against Colchester we kept a clean sheet and managed to get the goal; we didn't manage to get the goal but we kept another clean sheet. So it's onwards and upwards.

"You have to give yourself a platform to win games, and in the last two matches we have given ourselves that platform. On Tuesday night we managed to win, and today we managed to get a point. The dressing room feels good and we move onto the next game."

Clarke also commented on the calls for Leeds centre-back Christopher Kavanagh to be sent off after his early challenge, he told GetReading,

"I don't ask for players to get red cards after a game. The referee made his desicion. It could have gone either way, but the referee chose to give a yellow."

"I think it was one of the only free-kicks he gave us all day, he gave plenty to Leeds."