Stockport County manager Dave Challinor praised his side's work off the ball in Saturday's 3-1 win over Reading, highlighting the man-marking job on Royals captain Lewis Wing.

The Hatters won in the town for the first time since 1992 on their first visit to the Select Car Leasing Stadium in what was a dominant performance over a disappointing Reading outfit.

Heading two set pieces past Joel Pereira in the first 15 minutes, Sam Smith pulled one back for Reading on the hour mark but Jack Diamond's strike shortly afterwards killed the match off.

Stockport, who beat the Royals 4-1 at Edgeley Park in October, leapfrogged their hosts into sixth and the play-offs with the victory, albeit having played one more match than Noel Hunt's side.

Speaking after the win, Challinor said: "It was a really big one [win]. It’s a great place to come, a former Premier League ground. I know they’ve had their problems but it’s a brilliant arena to play football in."

Diving deeper into the victory, Challinor highlighted his sides work off the ball for particular praise.

Wing, Reading's Player of the Season last campaign, has 10 goal contributions in League One to date but was man-marked throughout by Will Collar, preventing his usual way of dictating play.

This allowed former Royal Ollie Norwood to take charge, contributing two assists for his new side.

"I spoke last week about the positives we could take from the Crystal Palace game and we spoke about it at half-time," Challinor said. "We got ourselves in a winning position and when we were a block last week, we made it really difficult for a Premier League team to get through us. Our shape, out of possession, was to force them into certain areas.

"They’re a possession-based team and Lewis Wing has a big impact on how they play and how the game runs, so we evidently were going to try and stop that. I thought we pressed and stopped him really well and on the back of that made opportunities through our press and got ourselves chances.

"We could’ve had more than what we did but to score from two set pieces which we worked hard at is pleasing. Putting us in a winning position at half time, it was important then that we managed the position and tried to remain positive and on the front foot to get a third goal."

Reading, now seventh, travel to eighth-placed Leyton Orient on Saturday looking to make it three away matches unbeaten.