Royals U18's were narrowly beaten by a strong Birmingham City outfit this weekend, as the Blues edged out a spirited Reading side with a 1-0 victory.

Our youngsters put in an impressive performance, exhibiting some slick passing football which left them unfortunate not to pick up a point.

Akwasi Asante's well taken solo effort on the hour mark was the only goal of the game, though academy boss Eamonn Dolan was more than happy with his side's display.

"We played against a strong Birmingham side, they had some players with recent first team experience in the team and I was very pleased with our performance, " he said.

"We were trying to do the right thing and play football and we had lots and lots of opportunities to score through our good football. They'll learn from that and become better players because of it."

The Royals' display was more noteworthy for the fact that they fielded two players from the U16 age group, who looked more than comfortable competing with players two or three years their senior.

"I'm very pleased with our two U16 players, Dean Santangelo made his full debut and it's quite tough for an U16 to come into U19 football, but he was very, very good. Jordan Obita started again, he's getting better every week and it was a really, really pleasing aspect in terms of our development."

Reading: Santangelo, Taylor (Arnold 45), Browne (Isaac 70), Goddard, Stockinger (C), Joyce, Harding (Morgan 75), D'ath, White, Wallcott, Obita

Subs: Lyskov, Morgan, Ugwu