THREE Championship games without a goal, eight league matches without a win, but Reading FC defender Tiago Ilori insists Royals' style of play will fire the club up the table.

Supporters have criticised Royals' possession-based gameplan which often sees the ball played around the back and Reading needlessly squander possession.

Further pressure mounted on boss Jaap Stam to alter his approach on Saturday when Royals suffered a 1-0 defeat to the in-form Brentford FC at Madejski Stadium.

But ex-Liverpool defender Ilori stressed 18th-placed Reading, four points away from the drop-zone, will continue to play out from the back despite the threat of relegation.

“That’s the way we want to play,” he asserted.

“We’re trying to play proper football and we know that’s the way that will take us to the heights we want to get to.

“We showed it last year and we’re going to continue working and doing our best to bring our football back.”

Royals' campaign has been a stark contrast of their third-place finish last season.

Ilori, who moved to Berkshire for a then club-record bid in January 2016, was part of the side which lost on penalties in the play-off final at Wembley Stadium.

And the 24-year-old said he cannot work where things have gone wrong for the Royals.

He added: “It definitely hasn’t been good enough. It’s difficult to pinpoint one mistake.

“We need to match the other teams’ work-rate.

“I’m not saying we don’t do that every week but if we can’t play our game or we can’t play our football and it’s not going our way, then we’ve got to do the simple things better.

“We can’t just look back at last year and think because we came third and nearly got promotion that automatically it’s going to happen again this season.

“Obviously it’s not happening.

“But we do have the quality we had last season and the football we’re playing and trying to play is the right way to go about it and we’re going to continue doing that.

“Everyone agrees with that at the club and we’re working hard."