Reading: More disappointment for Kwesi Appiah

Kwesi Appiah’s Reading continued their poor finish to the season with a 1-0 home defeat against Championship leaders Bournemouth.

The Ghana international once again missed out on the starting line-up, even though coach Steve Clarke opted to shuffle his offensive options.

The Royals have struggled for goals over recent weeks; they haven’t won in the Championship since a 2-1 victory over Brighton and Hove Albion on March 10 and have scored only two goals in their last four outings in the second tier.

That run has brought four draws and one defeat, yet despite the club’s failings, Clarke has handed Appiah only one start and again refused to turn to the Black Star in his side’s hour of need.

Clarke did at least rearranged his forward line and switched to a front three as Reading welcomed Championship leaders Bournemouth to the forward line.

However, the near-19,000 in attendance were left disappointed as Hal Robson-Kanu, Jamie Mackie and Garath McClearly were again unable to solve the Berkshire club’s impotency.

The visiting Cherries opened the scoring inside the first five minutes when Callum Wilson bagged his 22nd goal of the season after being first to react when an Andrew Surman effort came back off the post.

Despite losing, Reading didn’t perform much worse than their in-form opponents and indeed managed more shots, albeit with only one of the 12 being on target.

The club have an FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal at Wembley on Saturday and perhaps that high-profile fixture has distracted the side from their Championship run-in.

Appiah may well feature against the Gunners and indeed is clearly in the manager’s thoughts despite not starting. He was brought on against Bournemouth with 23 minutes remaining, replacing Nathaniel Chalobah, and managed to win four aerial battles according to WhoScored.

The Black Star moved to Reading on loan until the end of the season having been overlooked for parent club Crystal Palace’s Premier League squad.