ALI Al-Habsi says Reading FC must 'recover quickly' from their Preston North End no-show and be 'strong mentally' in the fight for the play-off places.

Royals' poor away form continued on Saturday with a heavy 3-0 defeat at Deepdale.

It was Reading's third straight loss on the road without scoring a goal following earlier reverses at promotion-chasing Brighton and Huddersfield.

Jaap Stam's side remain fifth in the Championship table but their lead over Fulham in seventh has now been slashed to four points after the Cottagers shocked leaders Newcastle 3-1 at the weekend.

And with Fulham benefiting from a game in hand over the Royals who also have the worst goal different of any side in the top 11, a top-six finish is far from guaranteed, with Stam's men due to travel to sixth-placed Sheffield Wednesday this Friday (7.45pm ko).

Goalkeeper Al-Habsi declared: “It is important that we recover very quickly and show ourselves, and use the experience we have as a squad. This is an important time for us now.

“We have to be strong mentally, and go into every game with desire and showing how important it is.

“We have been in the top six for many weeks and we don’t want to let that get away from us easily.

“Fulham are winning their games, and they are pushing us, Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds.

“We have nine more games and we need to show ourselves better. Pressure is always there – we have to show that in a good way.”

Reading were made to pay for missing a host of early chances at Preston as Lewis Grabban, Jordan Obita, Garath McCleary, Yann Kermorgant, Jordon Mutch and John Swift all went close for the visitors.

But Simon Grayson's Lilywhites were far more clinical and scored three times in 18 minutes either side of the break.

Tom Barkhuizen's superb strike put the home side in front on 31 minutes, Daryl Horgan notched the second nine minutes later and Barkhuizen netted again four minutes into the second half.

Reading were also dealt another injury blow on the day as Mutch limped off in the 33rd minute and will join Liam Moore, Tiago Illori, Stephen Quinn and Liam Kelly in the treatment room.

Al-Habsi added: “Saturday was really, really disappointing for everyone, but we’ll go back to the training ground this week and get ready for Friday.

“It is very disappointing, especially considering the way we started the game. We created some good chances in the first 30 minutes and we didn’t take them.

“We knew it would be hard, Preston are hoping to push into the top six and they have had good performances at home recently.

“They took their chances and if you see the first two goals, it is about small details.”

He added: “From now on, every single game is important, so to come away from home and to lose in the way that we did, we have to look at ourselves.

“We didn't show the desire needed to win the game. We know it has been a tough week with three games and a long journey, but that isn’t an excuse for us to not show.”

Al-Habsi also accepted Reading must up their game in order to end their poor away run against the Owls at Hillsborough.

“This time of the season is very important, and every point is very important,” stressed the 35-year-old Oman stopper.

“We have a massive game at Sheffield Wednesday on Friday now. It’s a six-point game and we need to put in a better performance than we did at Preston.”