Reading FC's Brian McDermott On Leeds Loss

Brian McDermott's return to Elland Road was not a happy one after a disappointing 3-2 defeat at the hands to Leeds United yesterday afternoon.

The Royals took the lead in the first half from Michael Hector. Three minutes into the second half Leeds equalised and then took the lead through a strike from Chris Wood. Deniss Rakels came on as a substitute to make it 2-2 before Wood scored again to secure three points for the home side.

It's hard to believe that four years ago today, Reading were promoted back to the Premier League and now, we are having a frustrating season in the Championship. McDermott feels that it is all down to bad luck, telling the official club website that...

"I think I must be trying to use all my bad luck up at once in these last few games of the season. When we came back to 2-2, we all thought we were going to win the game - but it was the same sort of thing as at Middlesbrough.

"We had a chance to win it there and ending up managing to lose it. And the same has happened here; it was just a long ball down the middle, Wood go in and scored. It's one of those things."

Positives to take from the game

"It's disappointing, very disappointing. But there are a lot of positives to take from the game. At half time we were ahead; we controlled the game, we had good territory, we'd played well with the ball, we'd created a couple of decent chances to get a second - and if we make it 2-0 it's a different matter altogether.

"We had three young boys on the bench today, George Evans got an hour under his belt, it was great to see Deniss score, Lucas Piazon worked hard, the whole midfield worked hard. We've got more points than we did last season and we know we'll be playing our football in this division next season which of course is important.

"And it's there to see that there's no lack of motivation from the players, if you saw the Middlesbrough game you'll know that, and then coming back to 2-2 today... that's clear to see.

"But, after all those positives, we want to be talking about a win and we're not.

"We're giving goals away a little bit too easily, we couldn't stop the cross for the second for example. It's the ugly stuff we need to be better at, and the ugly stuff we've struggled with as a club in the last four years or so."

The future

With only a handful of games to go until the end of a tough season, McDermott understands that it is going to be an important summer for the Club and one where everybody needs to stick together, he added:

"There was a lot of adversity last week with the frustration at Boro and, for me, a lot of good can come from adversity. We all want us to do well and I know it is frustrating. That's why it's an important summer coming up.

"We're working with a lot of the lads for next season, and we've got a lot to do in the summer. We have lots of loan players on the books, players out of contract, so it's a big summer for us, a big summer for our football club... and I'm looking forward to it."