Jaap Stam Staying Calm after Burton Victory

Four wins on the trot for the Royals means we are in our highest league position for over a year, but even after a great 3-0 victory over Burton Albion, Jaap Stam is still playing down our league position and seeking for improvement.

Dominic Samuel made his first start for the Royals and scored to make in 1-0. Danny Williams made it two shortly after. Burton had their chances but wasted them before John Brayford scored an own goal in the second half after good work from Yakou Meite to secure all three points stay in Berkshire.

Stam was pleased with the result, speaking to the Official Club website, he said:

"The result is very pleasing. It's 3-0 and you don't get that very often... and yet we've managed it twice in a row. It's good and we're very happy with that.

"The performance itself - in the first half we played very well. In the first five minute, we were searching for how to play in a system different to how we normally try to play. But after that we controlled the game, created some very good chances and scored two good goals.

"In the second half you want to keep that rhythm and do the same again, play the ball forward if the chance is there or keep possession when you need to. But we were a bit sloppy, not as aggressive as we were in the first half. We gave them a bit more time on the ball.

"At 2-0, if they score one, they get their confidence back. But they didn't really get any clear cut chances and thankfully we scored a third goal and created a few more chances to score even more."

Stam added after the game to not get too excited by our recent form and league position...

"We're realistic in what we're trying to achieve, what we can do with the squad we have and where we want to go to eventually.

"We want to perform, but we're still building something that will hopefully allow us to eventually get somewhere. We're doing well and the players are enjoying themselves - four wins in a row, four clean sheets, so I'm very happy with how everything is going.

"But it's still difficult to stay up there, because you're playing in a league with a lot of quality teams - clubs with squads that are probably bigger than what we have at the moment. So we need to look to the long term and what is realistic for us this season.

"Are we looking at the table and thinking we need to stay there, because then we might go up... no. We're just looking from game to game - that's what we're focused on.

"I know people can get happy with results like this and, of course, everybody wants to go up as quick as we can. The club wants that, myself as a manager I want that. But there are a lot of games to be played.

"We're working very hard to get results and up to now its going quite well. But during the season, there will be games that are difficult and we'll have to deal with them as well. We have to be realistic. So we're just looking from game to game and hoping to get a result."