Kitson blames egos for drop

Kitson: During his Reading days

We had no money, no reputation or image to project, no flash cars and nobody had their mortgage paid off.

Dave Kitson on Reading.
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Dave Kitson has blamed an inflation in egos for his former club Reading's relegation from the Premier League.

The Royals suffered the heartache of the drop last term, despite thriving in their debut campaign in the top flight in 2006/07 when they finished eighth.

Kitson, who joined Stoke City for £5.5million in July, believes a change in the squad's attitude was detrimental last season, and has admitted he was 'partly to blame' for their demise.

He told the Reading Evening Post: "Unlike players from teams established in the Premier League, we had no money, no reputation or image to project, no flash cars and nobody had their mortgage paid off.

Fearless

"We had everything to prove and nothing to lose. None of us had played in the Premier League but we had nothing to be scared of. It was just 11 different players than we had faced before.

"This changed in our second season. Suddenly we had flash cars, images, egos and everyone knew who we were, and when we didn't freshen things up with new players we were in a dangerous situation.

"All too quickly we went from being a side that could lose three games and bounce back immediately by winning three games, to a side which could lose eight games in a row, and that just killed us.

Disunity

"There was a real 'Lord of the Flies' split, which I had never experienced before. We didn't feel we were all together and I was partly to blame.

"We didn't have the vocal players we needed when things were going wrong but we had people pointing fingers, which was not good.

"Contrast that with our first season when everyone pulled in the same direction and you can see how we contributed to our own downfall."