‘WE NEED TO STOP CONCEDING, SCORE GOALS AND WIN GAMES’

READING FC interim assistant manager Michael Gilkes was left frustrated by the Royals’ inability to ‘break down’ Millwall in their home defeat.

“We lacked quality in the final third and struggled to break them down and the most crucial part is scoring goals.

“One of their strengths is set pieces. They had one shot which led to the corner and then led to the goal.

“Jake Cooper is a threat in both boxes as we knew and that proved to be the difference.

“I’ve known him since he was about 11.

“He’s a great lad, a weapon in both boxes, defensively outstanding.

“We’re not the only club who have struggled to mark him. He seems to find a way to get on the end of it.

“We’re very disappointed about the game, by the way, we are at home and expect to gain at least a point, and if not three.

Gilkes is determined for the Royals to fix their form to help in their fight to stay in the Championship.

He continued: “We need to docs on what we need to do.

“After this week we’ve got three games in seven days.

“When the ball doesn’t go in the net everyone talks about it and when it does, you get punished for it like we did.

“Millwall are a good team. They’re not just about set-plays and they caused us a few problems.

“In the first 20 minutes, we dealt with it well, conceded at the wrong time but then we went from strength to strength.

We came out in the second half, dictated the game but in those crucial moments, we couldn’t break the lines.

“We’re all together in this and we’re going to do everything we can to keep this team up.

“We need to stop conceding, score goals and win games.

“The preparation has been spot on but we got punished and didn’t do enough to get something but performance wise, we are heading in the right direction.”