Bolton Wanderers secured their second victory of the Sky Bet Championship season on Saturday, with Phil Parkinson’s side running out 1-0 winners at the Madejski Stadium.
Second half substitute Yanic Wildschut was the difference maker for the Whites, as he latched onto a Craig Noone's through ball and placed it under Reading’s Vito Mannone on 48 minutes.
When speaking to bwfc.co.uk after the game, manager Phil Parkinson covered these topics…
On taking all three points away from home…
I’m absolutely delighted. They were difficult conditions here today.
It was a sticky, humid day and the lads have really had to push themselves to get the result.
We came down here with the aim of could we perform and justify us getting in that top six and driving back up north, we certainly earned that.
We are very pleased that we could back up the win at West Brom today.
On how the game panned out…
We restricted Reading to very little.
The freekick in the first half was a great save by Ben Alnwick and special mention to Andy Taylor who followed it up.
Andy showed the detail and concentration levels that, in my opinion, are as vital as Yanic’s goal.
We had a couple of good chances on the break, some very good moments ourselves and the goal obviously lifted us.
We looked in control for large parts of that second half.
We let Reading have the ball in their own back third, so their centre backs had a lot of the ball.
But I never really felt like they were going to hurt us.
I do, however, think that Reading are a better team than their start suggests because they have good quality players.
I don’t think we can underestimate this win today.
On it being a complete away performance...
We said to the lads before the game that obviously the result wasn’t going to be handed to us on a silver salver.
We knew we had to earn the right today and when a team has had their first win in the midweek, but still looking for their first league win, we knew they would have a bit of an edge to their game.
We had to withstand that at times and the lads push themselves and that was clear to see.
On some standout player performances…
Yanic was unlucky not to start again but I just felt we had to put some fresh legs in the team from Tuesday and I do feel that thehigh-performance level from Tuesday contributed to the result today.
Because, if you’re Beevers on Wheatz and you see Hobbs and Wilson playing on Tuesday, you think “I need to step up to the plate here” and they certainly did today.
But back to Yanic, he’s one of those that I had to leave on the bench today and it typified the attitude that we want.
He was great before the game, wishing the boys well and then he came on.
It wasn’t just the goal either, but his all-round performance working for the team was very good.
On being stood with two wins from three and seven points from an available nine…
It is a great start for us, especially with the tough fixtures we’ve had, we are very pleased.
Like I said after the West Brom game, we aren’t going to get carried away with it.
It is only three games, but I think it is important that we enjoy it.
The Bolton fans have been long suffering on their travels and I think they’ve seen a really spirited team at the moment and that’s got to continue.
On Yanic Wildschut scoring yet another away game winner…
Players who score important goals are crucial.
It was a great ball by Nooney and it is important we give him credit for that, because he played with real heart today. You can’t underestimate the quality of that ball.
A really cool finish from Yanic as well.
On Ben Alnwick’s first half heroics…
Ben has carried on his form from last season.
He is an excellent goalkeeper and I am very pleased that we have him.
On confidence levels in the dressing room being high after that result…
We just have to breed that belief in the team and we felt the West Brom game did that.
We backed it up today and we have to remember that it’s not just 80 or 90%, it is flat out to win games.
That is not just the Championship, that’s every game of football in England because it is that competitive.
On this result being a building block for the upcoming home double header…
Well that has to be the aim now, to capitalise on today.
We saw Birmingham play last night and they were excellent against Swansea.
They were a team that improved despite one or two problems off the pitch.
We’ll think carefully long and hard about the team we’re going to pick for that game and make sure there is enough freshness in the team to go get that result.