Reading haven't had the best of starts to the season, and that has seen Jose Gomes replaced by Mark Bowen as manager.

The Royals have lost five of their last six Championship games and that saw Portuguese manager Gomes leave the club after being sacked.

Bowen has come in, and stepped up from his role as Sporting Director to take over as first-team manager at the Berkshire outfit.

It's quite a change in terms of job, and he'll be hoping that he can have an affect on the club as he looks to steer them away from relegation trouble.

The Royals were close to dropping into League One last season, and won't want to suffer the same fate again.

Here are THREE lessons Reading need to take from last season to improve this one...

Defensively organised

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing that they must take from last season is to be defensively organised. At the start of the last campaign the Royals were all over the place, and this led to them sinking further and further down the league table.

They then brought in Matt Miazga in January and he was solid at the back and seemed to be a leader next to Liam Moore as he was able to make the backline much more structured and that eventually kept them in the Championship. They need some more of this under Bowen.

Game by game

They have to take every game one by one, and at times you have to stop focusing on the style that you're playing and try to focus on what the opposition is going to do every week.

This is something that Reading have to do in order to make themselves better prepared for the bigger fixtures that are to come in the season.

They didn't do this enough last season, and ended up losing some very winnable games purely down to minor details.

Stop rotating

One thing the Royals must stop doing is rotating the lineup. They have an abundance of talent in their squad, especially after spending big in the summer, but they have to find a way of having a settled starting eleven.

That's one thing that they don't see at the Madejski Stadium. There's always a surprise to do with the team sheet and that's worrying going forward as stability is key.

[freshpress-poll ]