Wigan Athletic boss offers honest verdict on Reading setback

Latics started well in Berkshire, but fell behind just after the half-hour mark when Femi Azeez fired home into the top corner from 25 yards.

And the points were secure when Sam Smith doubled the lead six minutes after the restart with a deadly finish from close range.

Sam Tickle hardly had to make a save worthy of the name for the rest of the game, but Latics were unable to make their presence felt at the other end as Reading held on with some degree of comfort.

"These ones aren't so easy (to sum up)," said Maloney. "I just think, in the defining moments of the game, Reading were better.

"I was actually happy with the performance in the first half. The big criticism I had was, when we play like that, and we stop Reading from playing, we can't come in 1-0 down.

"The performance was pretty good, maybe just in that final third was where we dropped slightly. But I can't be critical of the players in those positions, because for so much of the season they've been very good.

"It's just that for the two big moments in the game, they took their chances for their goals and we didn't...that was the big difference."

Maloney had made five changes to his starting XI, with Harry McHugh handed a first league start alongside Liam Morrison, Liam Shaw, Callum McManaman and Charlie Wyke.

Out went Charlie Hughes, Kell Watts, Baba Adeeko, Jonny Smith and Stephen Humphrys, with Maloney asked about the thought process.

"Charlie Hughes was ill, which obviously meant we had to change the defensive line," he said. "We had to try to find a structure that made us as solid as we could be when we didn't have the ball.

"Of the other changes, some were tactical, Charlie Wyke played his way into the side, after doing brilliantly when he came on against Port Vale. But in terms of that, I was actually pretty happy in terms of how we started the game.

"The second half became a little bit less controlled, but that was the thinking."

Maloney also refused to draw any parallels to the 3-2 defeat at Port Vale seven days earlier.

"They were two completely different games," added the Latics boss. "In the first half at Port Vale, I was very unhappy, because they were a far better team and created far more chances.

"This game felt very different, we set up to be really aggressive, press them really high up the field, stop them playing, and force the longer balls.

"From that point of view, it went okay, but their first goal was a brilliant strike, and the second goal came from a second or third phase of a set-play.

"It was probably as secure as I've felt defensively for a while, so I see them as two completely separate performances, I don't see it as something of a trend."