Reading boss on 'a good night' as EFL Trophy progress confirmed with victory

Reading boss Ruben Selles described Tuesday's 3-0 win over Newport County as a 'good night' as it confirmed progress into the Round of 32 of the EFL Trophy.

A dominant display from the Royals, it took until the final 15 minutes for the hosts' efforts to be rewarded as Harvey Knibbs' brace and Jayden Wareham's strike confirmed victory over the League Two Exiles.

Speaking after the victory, Selles said: "The performance was good, and I think we played the game how we wanted to play. Obviously the first 15 minutes are difficult in those games, but we created some situations in the first half to be at least 1-0 up. In the second half we continued playing and finding our spaces. It was about the moment we scored the first goal. We adjusted a couple of things at half-time, but we knew that if we scored the first goal then we would score the second and third- and we did. I think the team were brilliant and the boys did a really good job. It was a good night for us.

"It would have been a calmer game [scoring earlier] but if the game was like that it would allow us to go into half-time and see what the problem was. We detected that we were very static in the box, so they were closing our lines of passing because we were not making the final pass because we didn’t have the spare player. I think in the second half we fixed it and closed the transition better. In not scoring the goal, there is always something we can do better."

Promising to start a strong team, Selles stuck to his word as the likes of Lewis Wing, Amadou Mbengue and Ben Elliott all featured from the start.

"It was a very strong team, and it is good that we are talking about a very strong team with two full backs at 16 and 17 and a midfielder at 18 years old. Ashqar [Ahmed] has been involved in the last four or five games, Andre is Andre and Shay is growing and playing every cup game, ready to go. We had a strong team and ended really strong.

"The boys are growing, and they are doing a fantastic job. It is good news that we can modify the position for Lewis Wing, playing as an eight, and modify for Jeriel Dorsett in his usual position before we arrived and having Abraham [Kanu] back after a long period of injury."