Leam Richardson ‘Very Disappointed’ With Reading’s Doncaster Display

The Royals fell further away from the playoffs with a disappointing 1-0 defeat against Doncaster Rovers at the Eco-Power Stadium on Saturday.

Owen Bailey gave the home side the lead in the 58th minute to secure the points. The defeat for Reading now leaves us five points away from the playoffs with the Royals in ninth.

Here is what Royals boss Leam Richardson had to say, he spoke to Royals TV.

Richardson on the defeat

“Very disappointing. We are disappointed with the performance. Largely, I thought, Doncaster played the conditions miles better than we did. It took us a while to get going. We needed to play with the intensity that we did in the last 20 minutes for the whole game.

“We should have had a penalty early on and possibly could have swayed the game, but there’s no excuse and I think we’ve fallen short today.”

Richardson on the conditions

“We’ve got to be better at it. We can’t always just play the way we want to play. We’ve got to adapt and overcome. We’ve got to make sure we take the challenge like it is.

“Because we are falling short in them types of games, whether that’s the squad that we’ve got, whether the mentality, and I think within the 20-plus games that I’ve been here, we’ve certainly learned a lot about each other and we’ll learn a lot about each other in the next three games as well.”

Richardson on our playoff chances

“At least mathematically, it’s still there, so you’ll always thrive and drive.

“From coming into a club that was looking over their shoulder to get relegated, picking a group of lads up who were really low of confidence and to then make a playoff push.

“We’ve fallen short which is disappointing. It’s my job to lead. It’s my job to make everybody aware of what we need moving forward at this club because I think this club deserves to be in a really good place and fingers crossed we can get there.”

Richardson on the dressing room

“You can imagine. Going in on Friday being 30 seconds away from a really good win at Huddersfield with an individual error. It leads into Monday. Obviously scoring a goal and I felt we took the weekend into the game.

“We try to pick the players up, protect the players, to drive the players, to then play with the intensity, like we said, in the last 20 minutes, but ultimately we’ve fallen short today.

“The Easter weekend has bitten us too hard, which is disappointing.

“I feel for the fans who travelled because they’ve supported us really well. It’s my job, like I say, to make sure when we have these days out, they have good days.“