The Royals suffered a defeat on the road with a 3-2 loss to AFC Wimbledon on Saturday.
The home side took the lead in the first half through Marcus Browne, but Jack Marriott scored just before half-time to equalise. Browne put the Dons ahead again just after half-time but the Royals came back through Jeriel Dorsett. Browne completed his hat-trick shortly after to secure the points for the home side.
The defeat leaves us in 11th, nine points off the playoffs. Here is what manager Leam Richardson had
to say. He spoke to Royals TV.
Richardson on the defeat
“It is frustrating, coming off the back of a few good performances. We wanted to evolve with that and then go again.
“We started the game slow, gave them something to hold onto. For all our possession, we didn’t really hurt them enough. Their chances came off our possession, we were too loose with the ball. We didn’t respect the ball enough in certain moments.
“Individually, there were quite a few below standard collectively, myself included.
“We win together, we lose together on our merits, but, we’ll dust ourselves down quickly. We’ll digest the game and we’ll get in tomorrow and we’ll go again.”
Richardson on coming back from behind twice
“It’s another game we scored two goals in. Away from home it should be enough to win games.
“Individual errors happen. We’ve had some more outstanding performances. You go to Joel Pereira, he’s the best keeper in the league and the division above. So we’ll never criticise Joel for making positive decisions. I want him to always come out and be commanding, because he’s done it a lot.
“Last weekend he was plucking the ball out the air in the last five minutes, a couple of times, which helps so I’ve no problem with individual errors, even young Liam Fraser coming on the pitch. It’s life.
“But collectively, we were not at our levels today and we’ll make sure we address that because we’ve got to look for that consistency. We’ve got to look for that edge to be competitive at this level in the top end.”
Richardson on trying the piece out good form together
“It’s football. You look at the league and look around the results today, for everybody. I alluded to it yesterday in the press conference, Sheffield United were in this league for six years, Portsmouth, Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds United, Sunderland, were all in this league for four or five years.
“It’s not an easy league. You can’t just walk out because of your badge, you have to be methodical. You have to make the right decisions.
“We’ve come from a place where we know, but we’ve got to build and we’ve got to build in the right way.
“I feel like we’re on a really good path, it won’t feel like that today straight away because of the result. We’re always judged on emotion and results, which is fine. That’s the industry. But you know, going forward, we’ll always come back better for it.”
Richardson on bouncing back on Tuesday
“That’s the best thing, isn’t it? We don’t get too high when we win, we don’t get too low when we lose.
“You have to win or learn, and we’ll learn very quickly off today. Hopefully, we’ll start another run on Tuesday because again, it’ll be a competitive game going up against a really good team and we’ll be ready for that challenge. “
Richardson on holding your nerve at this time of the season
“You look at the results again from midweek into this weekend, I’m sure it’ll be the same going into next weekend. They all become big games all of a sudden. It’s three points and those three points are huge.
“Today was our biggest game because it’s our next one, it was the biggest game of our season today and individually and collectively, we didn’t turn up, not like we have been doing. We’ll address that and we’ll address it very quickly and we’ll go forward.”
Richardson on Will Keane’s injury
“It is too early to tell. So fingers crossed it is not too bad, but again, it’s one of them things. He’s a big player for us, so fingers crossed he’s ok.”
