MICHAEL Morrison blasted his side’s lack of cutting edge following a toothless display in the 1-0 defeat against Bristol City on Tuesday night.

Chances were few and far between for Mark Bowen’s Reading FC as Jamie Paterson’s strike sent the Robins back down the M4 with all three points.

Ovie Ejaria squandered Royals’ best chance of the game after he lashed the ball over the crossbar from just four yards.

Yakou Meite then crashed a header off of the post before Chris Gunter’s sensational curling effort was cleared off of the line.

It means Royals have now won just one game in their last seven fixtures in all competitions, and Morrison said: “We didn’t do enough to break them down.

“They sucker punched us and they came with a good game plan. They’ll say they executed it well.

“We’ve got players who can unlock teams but they weren’t on their game tonight. We didn’t get in front of goal enough.

“Towards the end we changed it up and they were lucky not to concede. We could have got the draw but we had to do more when it was 0-0.”

Reading sit comfortably in mid-table but Bowen’s men have not given up on a late play-off charge.

But ex-Birmingham City skipper Morrison insisted Royals will need to put a string of wins together if they are to have any hope of finishing in the top six.

“We wanted to get back-to-back wins this week so now there’s more pressure on us going into Friday,” he continued.

“We need to think about Friday. We need to get a result there and see where it takes us.

“We’ll go for the win and try to perk everybody up. There’s still a good feeling in the squad but we need to get back to winning ways.

“We want to be playing for points at the top end of the table. We’re in an okay position but we need to go on a run and sooner rather than later.

“We’ve given ourselves a lot to do with the way we started this season.”

Reading visit Cardiff City on Friday night (7.45pm ko).