Reading head coach Jaap Stam has told the club website that he was delighted to see his team bounce back with a win over Aston Villa after being humiliated last week.
Last week the Royals got the country’s attention for all the wrong reasons as Norwich City ran riot and beat them 7-1 in a particular horrible result for the Berkshire club. Many teams buckle under the embarrassment of a result like this and that was something Reading couldn’t afford to happen because of the promotion race they are currently in.
But they bounced back with aplomb as they claimed a 3-1 win over Aston Villa, their first ever victory at Villa Park. Joseph Mendes got them an early goal before James Chester headed in the equaliser, though another goal from Mendes and a penalty kick from Lewis Grabban made sure that Reading would get all three points.
And their manager Stam was delighted to see them bounce back from such a devastating defeat with a confident win.
He said: “The result we had last week was very disappointing – we all know that,”
“But we spoke about how to get back into the sort of feeling you need to have as a team.”
“That was by working hard, having confidence in yourselves, doing the right things, and playing very disciplined. That’s what we’ve done today. And if you do that, you get a result like this.”
“We’ve bounced back several times this season – but we also knew, playing against a side who have just come out of the Premier League who have ambitions to go up, who have invested a lot of money in quality players, it wasn’t going to be easy.”
“Sometimes results like last week happen, even at the top level; Barcelona against Paris Saint-Germain for example, it can happen to the best teams. It happened with us last week.”
“But we stayed positive. There is no reason for us to hammer players at this stage of the season. We know that they can do, how they can play, we’ve got the utmost confidence in what they can do.”
“And in helping the players out, telling them what they need to do differently, having confidence in them, letting them talk between themselves about that game we moved forward.”
“We needed to bounce back – and there was no reason for us today to think about what happened last week, we needed to go forward. And we did.”
