Reading 2-0 Bristol City: Andy Carroll & Mamadou Loum give Royals victory
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Mamadou Loum and Andy Carroll scored second-half goals to give Reading victory over Bristol City in a tepid encounter.
Loum met a Tom Ince corner at the near post and his header beat Max O'Leary in the City goal.
Former Liverpool and England striker Carroll then struck deep into stoppage time to seal the points as he was teed up by Shane Long and calmly rolled the ball home.
There was otherwise little action of note as Mark Sykes and Rob Atkinson went close for City.
Nigel Pearson's mid-table visitors failed to build on their win at West Brom on Tuesday, failing to register a shot on target.
For Reading it was a much-needed victory after three straight defeats, which leaves them outside the Championship play-offs on goal difference.
It was the hosts who mustered the only moment of a drab first half as Jeff Hendrick forced a save from O'Leary.
A set-piece looked the likeliest route to a goal for either side and Ince's corner provided the opener through Loum's first goal since joining Reading on loan from Porto.
Pearson made three quick changes to try and spark the visitors into life and Sykes shot narrowly wide, before Atkinson failed to find the target from close range.
But veteran Carroll, on as a substitute minutes before, snuffed out any hope of a late equaliser.
Reading manager Paul Ince told BBC Radio Berkshire:
"I'm very pleased it was a good performance but there's not really one game in the past six or seven that hasn't been, even if we have lost games.
"So many other teams have lost three in a row so we've got to keep fighting and performing and it's always on the day.
"Today was great and to get a clean sheet with a very young backline is phenomenal."
Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson told BBC Radio Bristol:
"I'm not going to make excuses, it was a very average performance with not a lot of things to be positive about.
"We were very sluggish, we didn't move the ball quickly enough, out anticipation was poor.
"It was just a really disappointing performance all round."