Reading's poor run of form continued with a disappointing 0-2 defeat at Cardiff City this weekend. Cardiff's win was enough to lift them above Reading in the table as Reading sunk to 8th place from 2nd place less than a month ago. The Royals are now five games without a win and have picked up just 3 league points from a possible 15. Cardiff City had scored just a single goal in their last nine hours of football before coming up against Reading - and that was an own goal. The home side found the net twice against a below form Reading side - but also had their goalkeeper to thank for keeping their margin of victory intact.

After Tuesday night's 2-2 home draw with Huddersfield, both Fernandez and John were rewarded with places in the starting eleven. Both players transformed Reading when they came off the bench midweek and John scored the vital equaliser and might have secured a later Reading win. However, both players were to have much less impact in this game. Jordan Obita was impressive going forward on Tuesday night but week in defence and found himself swapped with Andrew Taylor. With McShane out injured there was room for both Ferdinand and Hector in Reading's defence - but days of clean sheets and strong defensive performances seem to be in rapid decline.

Kenwyne Jones, making his first start after returning from injury put Cardiff in the lead just before half time. Reading failed to defend a free kick and Jones rose with plenty of space to head past Ali Al Habsi to make it 0-1. Another header eight minutes after half time from a corner was enough to wrap up the victory. Reading replaced Alex Fernandez, Vydra and John with time running out in an attempt to vary the options up front. Williams, Hurtado and Liburd came off the bench, and the Royals did manage to generate some chances. It was Rowan Liburd's first appearance for Reading and only Paolo Hurtado's fifth. However it was another attempt to get something from the game too late and Reading were thwarted by the Cardiff City goalkeeper who made a string of good saves to secure their win.

It's all a bit muddled; poor passes, mediocre movement, too many touches, and as you said just not enough urgency or intensity. Build up is far too slow.

A lot of that will be confidence which is obviously going to be relatively low at the moment, it's not going to help having so many inconsistencies and changes in the team.

Whilst the injuries have affected us it's not an excuse for me. I think we still have enough quality in remaining players to be able to perform better and get better results than we have done recently.
CountryRoyal

That was dreadful, completely awful.

Firstly Cardiff are a yet another poor team (so that's at least 3 in the last 5 games we've played and failed to win) and should have been beaten even with the players missing but down to the inability to defend set pieces we lost.

Yes Marshall had a blinder but that would not have mattered if this team played DIRECT passing football instead of reverting to the Adkins diet of crab football. The number of times the option to pass forward or to move forward into space was rejected for a nice safe backward/sideways pass was unbelievable. Someone needs to tell them if you don't gamble from time to time then you'll rarely get a coconut

Also getting really hacked off with the lack of proper wing play i.e. always cutting in or hitting crosses from well in front of the 18 yard line and the complete and utter ineptitude of our corners (any one remember the last goal we scored from a corner in the league?)

This better be sorted by the time Bolton roll into town as failing to win that is just NOT an option.
Sutekh

Can we remember their keeper made 6 world class saves? We were crap but if just 2 had gone in it wouldn't be so gloomy.

We played 1-4-2-3-1 today. Not sure why people think we play 442 as we quite obviously don't. No right winger killed us numerous times during the game as blackman had gone wondering central. Gunter had no outlet but to cut inside back to Fernandez. John is not good enough to start, we've already seen that in plenty of games where he has.

Ferdinand useless, again. To quote the girlfriend 'I don't think much of that Ferdinand bloke'
LWJ

Cardiff City ended their goal drought with a 2-0 win against Reading. Kenwyne Jones became the first Cardiff player to score since 3 October as he headed them in front before half-time.

Matt Connolly doubled the lead as he nodded in from a corner, before David Marshall preserved the hosts' clean sheet with several fine saves. The result sees Cardiff leapfrog Reading into seventh spot in the Championship, three points behind the play-off places...

Reading poured forward late on in a bid to salvage a point, but they were thwarted by an inspired Marshall, whose three sharp saves in a minute prompted a standing ovation from the home fans.

Reading boss Steve Clarke:

"David Marshall was terrific today and the fact he got man of the match shows we weren't far away from a good result. We knew they would be a threat at set-plays, but we were very disappointed with the referee - the free-kick he gave for the first goal was very soft.

"They got the first goal which made it difficult for us as well and conceding from a corner is not like us. I have to give credit to the players because they kept going and kept trying and on another day some of those shots could have gone in."
BBC Sport