Reading manager Paul Clement believes the 3-2 home victory over Bristol City can act as a springboard for the rest of the Sky Bet Championship campaign.
Lowly Reading went ahead early on through Yakou Meite but City levelled when Marlon Pack fired in an angled drive.
Liam Kelly regained the home lead in first-half stoppage time – only for Josh Brownhill to grab a second equaliser for City before the interval.
But Leandro Bacuna secured only the fourth league win for Reading this season with a well-worked goal in the 66th minute.
“It was a really important result for the club,” Clement said. “For everyone involved, from our owners through to me and ultimately the players.
“There has been a lot of pressure building because of our performances and our results, which is normal.
“So it’s a really good feeling to win and to win at home.
“Hopefully, we can use it as a little bit of a springboard now – something we’ve not managed to do so far this season.
“I thought the commitment of the players was brilliant.
“The margins were very fine at the end. City had a couple of good attempts, they were right in and around our goal and hit a post. And we got in a couple of vital blocks.
“The players stood up to be counted when it was needed. And that’s what you’ve got to do.
“We led twice and City came back twice. But we didn’t let it affect us and continued to attack.
“From that attacking point of view, we got three goals today and we are scoring regularly.
“But the issue that we’ve got is defensively. There were a couple of mistakes today that made it much closer than it really should have been.
“When we manage to address the defensive side, I think that we will start to climb the table.”
Clement was asked if he had felt the pressure from his side’s recent poor run.
“Well, I think I can stay another week,” he joked. “And that’s nice.
”We’re still in the bottom three but we’ve shown that we’re still all together.”
City now have just two wins in their past nine matches.
“It was disappointing to concede three goals away from home,” assistant head coach Dean Holden said.
“That’s not like us. With two of Reading’s goals, we felt that we should have defended better.
“OK, the second from Kelly was a screamer into the top corner. He’s got that ability in him.
“Could we have got up to the ball a little bit quicker? I’m not sure, we’ll have to analyse that.
“But we’ve created a hatful of chances throughout the game. Off the top of my head, we’ve probably had 20 chances in the game.
“We know that we need to be more clinical at times.
“Overall, it’s a disappointing afternoon. We came here to win as Reading had been on a poor run of form prior to the game.
“But they’re always going to get a good result at some point, they’re a good team.
“We played some good stuff at times but we just didn’t defend well enough to get anything out of the game.
“We just have to swallow our medicine today and move forward.”
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