Ruben Selles dedicates win to Reading fans after ending long wait for away glory
Posted Sunday, November 26, 2023 by PA
Ruben Selles saluted the loyal Royals who stuck by his side after Reading ended a 378-day wait for an away league win with a 2-1 triumph at Wycombe.
Former Chairboy Lewis Wing scored the winning goal four minutes before half-time after Killian Phillips had cancelled out Sam Smith’s opener.
The under-fire boss believes his side were deserving of the three points and looked forward to brighter days after cutting the gap to League One safety.
“I know the fans have been suffering during the entire season for a lot of different reasons, one of them being us not being able to win as much away,” said Selles.
“I’m happy for them. They have always been supportive of the boys. It’s always a pleasure to have that amount of fans away from home, get a victory away from home and for the boys to celebrate together.
“We were the best team on the pitch for 100 minutes. The team is growing and I’m very proud of the players and how they played the game.”
The league’s bottom side fielded Nelson Abbey, 20, and Tyler Bindon, 18, at the heart of their defence, with full-back Andy Yiadom the only outfield player over the age of 30.
But they acquitted themselves well and saw out a victory which will have banished memories of their last away league fixture – a gut-wrenching late 3-2 defeat against Shrewsbury.
“We have a couple of young centre-backs growing with the games, getting experience with the league and we had a plan from the very beginning,” said Selles.
“We knew after the second goal, if we started to go lower and lower, we would get in trouble. But the team continued applying the pressure with the high-line.
“We were not defending for 50 minutes. It was a pleasure we could keep a good team like our opponent today away from our goal in the second half.”
Wycombe boss Matt Bloomfield was left to bemoan a growing injury list as his side’s winless league run stretched to six matches.
“It isn’t easy,” said Bloomfield. “We’ve got nine to 10 injuries and some big players are missing.
“It feels like we’re making at least one or two changes regularly due to injury, which is tough, but ultimately we have to be better than what we were.
“Competing for the second balls, running, heading, tackling, those little bits that go into a performance that are actually massive.
“I’ve said many times this season how proud I am of the performance but today wasn’t one of those days.
“We were poor and we have to make sure we’re ready to bounce back on Tuesday evening against Barnsley.”
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