West Ham manager Sam Allardyce bemoaned his side's indiscipline after they crashed to a 3-0 defeat at Reading.
Hammers boss laments O'Brien and Collison after dismissals
West Ham manager Sam Allardyce bemoaned his side's indiscipline after they crashed to a 3-0 defeat at Reading.
The Hammers, who slipped three points behind Championship leaders Southampton as a result, had substitute Joey O'Brien and Jack Collison sent off at the Madejski Stadium as Reading cruised to an impressive win.
Alex Pearce grabbed the opener before a late Simon Church brace put the icing on the cake, with Allardyce citing his team's lack of self-control as the biggest contribution to their loss.
He said: "Unfortunately a loss of control by the players that I haven't seen before in my time here, particularly Joey O'Brien, cost us a result today.
"It's not like him and he's not that sort of character. Then we let the opposition score from the free-kick instead of organising ourselves to see it out to a 0-0 draw.
"We have had a very bad day. We have lost Guy Demel with a thigh strain early on. If that hadn't happened Joey would not have been on the pitch.
"I wouldn't really quibble about either sending-off but if Jack Collison went then I think Noel Hunt should have gone. He caught Joey and could easily have broken his foot or leg."
O'Brien was dismissed for two yellow cards, the second for a 65th-minute foul on Jobi McAnuff.
Almost immediately, Pearce turned in McAnuff's centre for the opening goal. Church made it 2-0 and then added another shortly after Collison had seen red for a needless challenge on Jimmy Kebe.
"We lost our cool today," said Allardyce. "They could have been heroes if we had got a point away with 10 men.
"We are in serious trouble now player-wise and will be struggling to get 11 out."
McDermott
Meanwhile, Reading boss Brian McDermott was delighted with the win and praised his young side.
"We are a team that's trying to evolve and we have done that today to the best team in the division," said McDermott.
"They have a lot of Premiership players in their side and you can see why they win so many away games.
"We are all about the team at Reading and never about the individuals. I try to explain that to players who don't play.
"We have played some good stuff today. We got the first goal, which was really important and then we kicked on.
"We had four products of our academy on the pitch at the end of the game which is a credit to the way we develop them."
