Ruben Selles On ‘Another Tough Night’ For Reading

A disappointing evening for the Royals with a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Northampton Town at Sixfields.

It was an evening of mistakes, red cards and poor performances. Northampton took the lead with just 10 minutes on the clock and they doubled their lead before the break. Dom Ballard got the Reading goal in the second half as the Royals pressed but it wasn’t enough, with Northampton scoring a third in injury time.

Manager Ruben Selles admitted it was a tough night and said his side need to learn how to play these types of games. Here is what he had to say; he spoke to the official club website and Reading Chronicle.

Selles on the defeat

“Another tough night. Another tough trip away from home. And another game in which we were not ready for the first part of the game.

“We came here with an idea of how we could affect the game in the early stages – and we did exactly the opposite as a team.

“And we made it difficult to come back from that position. We nearly equalised a couple of times after the first goal, but the goalkeeper make two fantastic saves. And then we concede the second one.

“In the second half, we scored our goal we created chances again to equalise – but chasing the game in the final few minutes you can make the mistakes we made for the third.

“We were losing the ball in midfield, we were losing our shape and we were too open too often.

“We need to be more ruthless, because we are in the positions to score goals. But we need to demand more from those situations and be more clinical.

“I cannot ask for more to the fans. They come here on a Tuesday night and they are with us, supporting us. They were excellent for us and all I can say is that we will work hard to try to be better and try to make them proud.

“But it’s frustrating, because we need to keep sustainable attacks and score goals but we also need to keep the opposition away from our goal. It’s in both boxes we need to work on our game. The whole team needs to do better.

“And we quickly need to learn how to play games like these, because we can’t continue like that.”

Selles on lack of scoring

“We are not scoring goals, but we are creating the situations, so we need to be more ruthless because the positions are there. We need to demand more from the situations and be more clinical in our finish because it is the thing keeping us away from being in the games.”

Selles on Andy Yiadom red card

“When you come into the situations we are in, sometimes we make mistakes. Andy made a mistake to go to the fourth referee. It was a lot of yelling and screaming but they decided to just show him the red card. I think they should have not gone that far, but it is the referee’s call. It can happen. I don’t think it was any bad word or anything offensive, just they see a lot of noise.”

Selles on Mola red card

“We asked him why he got the red cards, and it was confirmed. They checked their notes, and they didn’t have the first yellow card, so he came back. It is on them, not us. For now, he stayed on the pitch until the end, and we will see when they come. We will be ready if we need to ask for something.”

Selles on changing approach

“We need to try and make some changes in the way we approach the game because we cannot accept another game away from home and being down in the first part of the game. We already did it, but it obviously didn’t work so we need to see the best way to approach the game.”

Selles on halftime changes

“We were not sustainable. We were losing lots of balls and running out of position quickly. We were too open when we had the ball. The changes were to bring Harvey [Knibbs] into the positions he knows and plays and to get Hutchinson to command the middle of the pitch.”

Selles on David Button

“David is a great goalkeeper. Today was not his night but we still trust him. He has been excellent for us on many occasions and has kept us in games. We can all have an off day, and we accept that. The trust and confidence in him is 100 per cent.”