Steve Clarke concentrating on Reading's inconsistent Championship form
Monday 6 April 2015 12:26, UK
Reading manager Steve Clarke is concentrating more on his side's inconsistent Championship form rather than their forthcoming FA Cup semi-final with Arsenal.
After drawing 1-1 at home to Cardiff City, in which they conceded a last-minute equaliser, Reading lie nine points clear of the relegation zone but with a game in hand.
"No, the Cup is not on the agenda today," Clarke said. "I'm just talking about the league. I thought we played well enough to get the three points. It's a game that we should have finished off long before they equalised.
"When you go into the last five minutes and it's only 1-0, you always leave yourselves vulnerable. But it's a point further away from the bottom three so we'll take it and move on to the next game.
"There was a lot of positives today. The team was good. We've said that, from the international break, we've got eight league games left and we've set ourselves a little points tally. I'm not telling you what it is but we're now a point on the way to that tally."
Reading, who beat Cardiff 2-1 in the fourth round of the cup this season on their way to setting up a semi-final with Arsenal, were quick to get the upper hand at the Madejski Stadium.
They took the lead after only four minutes, when Jordan Obita crossed from the left, Garath McCleary nodded it down and Pavel Pogrebnyak touched home his third goal in two matches.
The hosts remained in the ascendancy, mainly through the impressive efforts of Chelsea loanee Nathan Ake on his debut, but they were unable to double their lead in a scrappy first half.
However, after upping the tempo after the interval, Reading created several chances. McCleary should have done better after latching on to a poor pass from Cardiff centre back Bruno Ecuele-Manga but scuffed his shot wide.
Cardiff went close to equalising, with Craig Noone forcing a good save from home goalkeeper Adam Federici and Ecuele-Manga nodding wide at the far post from Peter Whittingham's free kick.
But after Reading had wasted a good opening, when Michael Hector nodded a McCleary corner into the ground and up on to the crossbar, Cardiff levelled in the 90th minute.
Aron Gunnarsson provided a slide rule pass into the Reading area and Conor McAleny met it with a fierce half-volley that flew past Federici and stretched Cardiff's unbeaten run to four games.
"All in all, it was a very tight game," Russell Slade, the Cardiff manager, said. "There wasn't much in it throughout. We started well enough but our marking for the goal was disappointing.
"I thought we grew into the game and we kept going. We stayed in it and it was really worth it when we got that late goal. Conor took it so early and made it very difficult for their keeper to get across. It was a really good finish.
"We want to try to keep the momentum going until the end of the season. And I think we're achieving that at the moment. We'd like to finish the season strongly. We're now more consistent and resilient."
