John Ruddy must take any criticism coming his way insists Neil Adams after the Norwich keeper's error for Reading's second goal.

Ruddy failed to cut out Jordan Obita's cross despatched by the unmarked Jake Cooper to seal the Royals' victory.

The 28-year-old then survived a later scare when he spilled Oliver Norwood's long range strike but claimed the ball perilously close to his goal line.

Ruddy engaged in a frank Twitter debate with City fans after the game questioning his recent displays behind a brittle backline, and Adams admits that comes with the territory.

'John has held his hands up for the second one. He should have done better with it,' said Adams. 'The first one I will have to look again but it looks like bad marking. The second he comes and misses it and it's a goal, it's a mistake, he has to accept that and he has done. If he gets criticised for it that is the game.

'I wouldn't say he is the only one who looks like he is lacking a bit of confidence. I think we are all. You can see that, you can sense it. We are waiting for a win to kick start things again because the Bolton one seems a long time ago. It wasn't but it feels like that. You can feel the confidence and the spirit has to come back quickly. The players haven't changed but we aren't performing as a team in the manner we did at the start of the season.'

City had a penalty appeal rejected in the closing stages when Lewis Grabban's miscued header struck Reading's Michael Hector but Adams was not offering any easy excuses.

'I think it was a penalty kick. I think everybody saw the ball hit his hand and those are the type of things that probably would have got us a point,' said Adams. 'You don't want to be relying on a hand ball claim. I am not going to put this defeat down to that. We have to look beyond that.

'If we aren't getting a penalty decision in the closing stages of the game you hope you are two or three goals up and it doesn't matter. I wouldn't use that as an excuse.

'You see the chance Josh (Murphy) had and that is symptomatic of our luck. It was a good move and he probably tried too hard to get a good contact when you just needed to guide it because the pace was on the cross or the cut-back.'