Town manager Roy Keane says his strikers need to start scoring goals or the Blues will end the season in the bottom half of the Championship. The Blues boss says his side should have taken more of their opportunities during the back to back away games at Scunthorpe and Reading.
Keane said: "If you don’t score goals, you’re going to go nowhere fast. We had the same last year and we don’t want to go down the same road.
"We scored one on Saturday, none tonight. I would say in those two games we had seven or eight very good chances.”
The Irishman called on his players to be more clinical: "Particularly the strikers, if you get that opportunity, you’ve got to score goals. Our leading goalscorer scored eight last year. If our leading goalscorer gets eight this year we will be in that bottom half.
"Our strikers have to take responsibility, just like our defenders have to do for set pieces. Our goalkeepers, we judge them on clean sheets.
"If our strikers aren’t scoring or contributing when they’re starting or coming on, they need to do better.
"But, in defence of them, I think the strikers needed a bit more to go off from the midfield tonight. It’s obviously a team game and we all need to do a bit better.”
Keane again had praise for Jaime Peters, who negated the threat posed by Royals winger Jimmy Kebe, having done the same at Portman Road in the game between the teams last season.
"Jaime was very good. I thought two full-backs and the back four in general did well. I think we know that Reading are a big threat going forward, particularly at home. Jaime’s a very, very good attacking player and he did well. I’ve a lot of time for Jaime, he’s a good player.
"He’s done well against that type of winger many times. I think it suits him with his size, his strength and his pace. I think he enjoys those one v one battles. I think we missed him a little going forward, but I think he and Troy defended pretty well.”
The Town boss had few arguments with either red card and felt he ought to have acted at the break with Luke Hyam already booked: "I think it was coming. I should have taken him off at half-time. When you play the way Luke plays — tackling - and you’re on a booking, there’s always the danger.
"He’s been naïve of course and the referee was quite quick to send him off but I've not too many complaints. He set himself up for it with the first yellow card.”
Town will also be without David Norris when Leeds visit Portman Road on Saturday, but Keane says there’s no panic: "He’ll obviously be suspended, Luke will be suspended, but we’ll survive. We’ll have 11 players ready for Saturday.”
Meanwhile, Newcastle boss Chris Hughton has dismissed claims of interest in Town striker Connor Wickham having been spotted at the Blues' match at Scunthorpe on Saturday.
Hughton said: "There is absolutely nothing in it. I went to Scunthorpe on Saturday because it was one of the closest places to get to after training."