Ryan Bertrand has echoed the thoughts of his manager by citing the loss of individual battles as a key reason for defeat at Plymouth Argyle on Bank Holiday Monday.

A below par performance from Brian McDermott's men resulted in a 4-1 loss at Home Park, and the on-loan Chelsea full back says his teammates need to work on the less glamorous side of their game if they're to push up the Championship table.

"It didn't happen today, we went in at half time quite confident that we'd be able to get back into it but it was one of those days. You get momentum in the game by winning those individual battles and we didn't really get a chance to build any up," he said.

"If you don't win the first ball it's important that you win the second, those are the 'nitty gritty' things in football that you need to win and today was one of those days where we didn't win enough of them and it took its toll.

"It's an awkward place to come down to, you get the feeling that they were playing off our mistakes and everything went their way on the day."

A glamour tie with Liverpool could prove to be the perfect opportunity for Reading to start afresh in 2010 - and Ryan has urged fans to turn out in force to help their chances of a cup upset.

"We have to knuckle down and look forward to the next game - it's onwards and upwards now, there's only one place we can go and there's no point looking down. It's only a matter of time before we get it together.

"Liverpool is a massive game for everyone, it'll be good to take part so the boys will be looking forward to that and it'll be nice to see a big crowd. Our fans came down to Plymouth in their numbers, it was great support and hopefully we can replicate that at home."