Reading vs Sunderland

Paul Ince has delivered a harsh verdict on his players following their defeat at the hands of Sunderland.

"But it's the manner of the defeats I don't like and this was that time. I won't be too harsh because if we look at it - four wins out of five at home and 15 points - you'd take it all day long. Hopefully it's come at the right time. The disappointing thing is if you go back to Rotherham and Sheffield United - when we concede two goals we capitulate. "We are mentally weak - people start doing their own thing, become individuals - and that's going back to last year. I've told them that, get your feet back on the ground, focus on staying in the league, be competitive and we'll re-address it in March. "We did nothing like that. "Maybe it's a good result for us as it gets everyone back on the ground. We didn't get into midfield, onto the second balls and we weren't competitive or aggressive enough. "This has brought us back down to Earth. Reading had made a good start to the season and remain fourth in the table, one point and two places above the Black Cats, but Ince gave a withering assessment of his team's performance. You've won four on the bounce at home and playing Sunderland who have only just come up, maybe they got nervous but I don't know why because it's only nine games into the season.

Ince's full thoughts on what went wrong performance-wise (pretty much everything), plus an Andy Carroll update.

We have to stay in the league and to do that we have to compete and fight to win. You have to do the basics but we didn’t do that. We have to fight for everything, we have to fight to win. We had a couple of chances - Fornah and Meite should have scored - but we’re losing headers at the back to Pritchard who is 5ft 7in. “We’re looking to try and do something this week. But if we go into games with that same attitude and application, we’ll lose. And we’ve got to do that in every single game until we get to March and then we’ll see where we are in the table. And this is where we are. Because we are where we are and because we’ve had a good start, everyone was getting a bit above our station. We didn’t do anything right. “We had no intensity, no second balls won, in possession we were sloppy, we couldn’t hold the ball up, we looked tired – and we shouldn’t be saying that after we had the weekend off. Reading remain fourth in the table but Paul Ince said it was the kick up the backside that we needed.

Sunderland continued their impressive Championship form with a fine win on the road last night. Tony Mowbray's side comfortably dispatched a Reading outfit ...

This, combined with his [100%](https://www.sofascore.com/sunderland-reading/DsQ) accuracy on all crosses and long balls denotes a near-perfect performance from the right winger. It is this work rate that has made him such a fan favourite at the Stadium of Light, as he also managed to win [four](https://www.sofascore.com/sunderland-reading/DsQ) of his seven ground duels. [83%](https://www.sofascore.com/sunderland-reading/DsQ) of the game he still managed [55](https://www.sofascore.com/sunderland-reading/DsQ) touches and [three](https://www.sofascore.com/sunderland-reading/DsQ) shots on target. [special](https://twitter.com/McGregorDerek/status/716262722913099776)” talent, as once described by The Sun’s Derek McGregor, was also successful on [three](https://www.sofascore.com/sunderland-reading/DsQ) of his four attempted dribbles, with some of those crucial in the goals that he scored. [8.7](https://www.sofascore.com/sunderland-reading/DsQ) rating during his 74 minutes on the pitch.