JOEY van den Berg accused his Reading FC team-mates of conceding goals too easily and not finishing off their chances in a bid to rally Jaap Stam's troops for Saturday's trip to rock-bottom Rotherham (3pm ko).

The no-nonsense midfielder admitted attacking players need to sharpen up while defenders must stop shipping costly goals at the other end.

Van den Berg spoke out in the wake of a frustrating week for Stam's men, who are now without a win in four Championship matches.

Confidence also took a battering on Tuesday night when Liam Moore conceded a last-minute penalty in the 2-1 home defeat by Aston Villa.

That came off the back of a 1-1 draw at QPR on Saturday when Reading missed a string of chances to nick a winner in the second half.

However, Van den Berg, who has filled in at centre-back for injured skipper Paul McShane for the last two games, urged fans to keep believing in the team as they adapt to Stam's possession-based system.

"The Aston Villa result was very disappointing," said the Dutchman. "This one hurts the most.

“I think we were the better team all game, they got into our box twice and we lost.

“The good thing about this league is that games come up thick and fast. We need to get a result on Saturday now so we have to get over this and not mourn for too long. But we need to learn from this result.

“After the equaliser we were too eager to score the second and we allowed Villa to come out on the counter-attack.

“We concede goals too easily and we don't score enough, that's a big thing that we need to work on.”

Royals have enjoyed some success using Stam's posssession-based system, but it has also received criticism from some supporters for failing to produce enough goals.

However, van den Berg stressed: “The fans can get on our backs as much as they want. I don't care.

"We are not going to change that, only if it gets too dangerous then maybe we will make a different decision, but this is how we play football.

“If they want to scream instead of support us then they can do that.

“Don't give up on us yet.”

Reading will start as favourites against Rotherham, who are bottom of the table and without a manager following the sacking of Alan Stubbs earlier this week.

A run of one win and six points from 13 Championship matches cost the ex-Celtic defender his job.

Fitness coach Paul Warne is in temporary charge of the Millers, but van den Berg insists there is no such thing as an easy game in this division.

“They are playing to stay in the league and that's even harder to play against,” said the former SC Heerenveen man.

“We won't lose faith, we played well on Tuesday and we have to keep going.”

Reading will be without the services of McShane, Jake Cooper, Yakou Meite and Deniss Rakels through injury.

John Swift, who had a brief loan spell at Rotherham from Chelsea in 2014, will be among those making the trip to New York Stadium.