After a disappointing defeat in midweek, we go wo Wigan aiming to put things right. But, as we have found out against the other newly-promoted sides this season, it won’t be easy!
“It’s a quick turnaround and we have to get over the disappointment of Wednesday night quickly,” said Royals boss Paul Ince.
“We’ve got to bounce back and, most importantly, compete. We didn’t compete against Sunderland.
“We’ve got 37 games left to go this season – and there are going to be a lot more bumps in the road, especially considering the position we’re in.
“The situation we’re in, the circumstances we have to deal with, we have to collect as many points as we possibly can…quickly.
“Any talk about anything more that trying to stay in this division should be put to bed. And the result against Sunderland will have helped people do that.
“The lads now know that if they’re not at it, that is what is going to happen. It’s not about tactics, it’s not about which players are picked; we’ve picked virtually the same set of players since the start of the season and when those players have been at it, they’ve shown what they can do. But if we’re not at the races, what happened on Wednesday night will happen again.
“That’s a learning curve for them. It’s a learning curve for all of us. We have to be more mentally tough. You look at the Stoke game, the Middlesbrough game, the Millwall away game – when we are hanging on to a lead, we have shown we can fight for that.
“But on the other side, if we go a goal or two down, too often we capitulate and we look mentally weak. At 2-0 down at half-time on Wednesday night, I told them that if we get a goal, the crowd gets behind us and it’s game on. But we couldn’t even do that right against Sunderland.
“It’s not something you can easily teach a player, they have to find that mental toughness inside themselves. It’s something they have to learn.
“So Saturday, we go again. I’m not going to start being negative about our players or putting pressure on them. They don’t deserve that – what did they did last season and what they have done so far at the start of this season has been brilliant.
“It’s all about character and these players have bundles of character, we’ve seen that.
“We’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got to be confident, we’ve got to believe in what we’re doing. Yes, we’ll win some, we’ll lose some – football is a rollercoaster. But we have a goal, an ambition this season. And once we get there, only then will I be happy.”