Jaap Stam On Reading FC’s Frustrating Cardiff City Draw

The manager was disappointed by the result, but took positives from the 2-2 stalemate.

It was definitely the tale of two halves when the Royals faced second place Cardiff at the Madejski on Monday evening. Reading went in 2-0 up at half-time after a Cardiff own goal gave the Royals the lead, before a deflected Mo Barrow shot made it two in what was a fantastic first half performance.

But Neil Warnock's Cardiff upped the ante in the second half and scored two late goals to secure a point.

‘Frustrating’ and ‘disappointing’ don't even cover it, but I'm sure we would have all taken a point before the gamer. Of course, the players were bitterly disappointed, but Jaap Stam could take positives from the game. He told the official club website:

"Everybody is down and disappointed by this result. But we will tell them that we are happy with what they brought to the game.

"We started the game well and, at times, played some very good football - we scored two goals and maybe could have scored more.

"They were a threat going forward, when they won that ball they wanted to go forwards as quickly as they could with the pace and the physique they have - but I thought we dealt with that very well for the first 80 minutes.

"In the second half, we knew what to expect - if you have a 2-0 lead you know they are going to try to get that goal which can give them a feeling that they can get something from the game - and we have been warned about that from other teams this season.

"But still we created chances to score that third one which would have killed the game. You don't score the third goal and you know they are going to be playing very direct balls in the air into the box. And sometimes that ball can drop to someone's feet and they can score that goal - which is what happened.

"When they started playing balls even more direct, in behind the back line to turn us around and into the box from throw-ins and free kicks. And it becomes a battle.

"And that's when you need to fight for it. And that's what the boys have done for 95 minutes.

"Sometimes we need to drop deep and defend to win the points and last season we succeeded in that a lot. But tonight, we couldn't do it and we conceded two late goals. And it's disappointing.

"If you want to win games, if you need points to climb the table - a result like this is very frustrating. We only have one point and not three."

Next up for the Royals is a trip to Portman Road to face Ipswich on Saturday.