Jaap Stam wants his Reading players to feel hurt of penalty shoot-out defeat to 'learn from experience'

Jaap Stam says he wants his Reading players to be hurt by the pain of the penalty shoot-out defeat to Huddersfield Town in the Championship play-off-final - and not just “go out and eat some Chinese” with their girlfriend - so that they can properly learn from the experience for next season.

Reading were beaten 4-3 on penalties after Liam Moore and Jordan Obita missed spot-kicks following a tense 0-0 draw at Wembley.

While Stam acknowledged that it had still been a season of overachievement to make the play-offs, with that leading to speculation over his own future at the club, he also described the manner of defeat as “the worst-case scenario”.

“It's very hard,” the Dutch coach said. “It's difficult to take but it needs to be difficult. You can't say 'Tomorrow I'm going to go out and eat some Chinese with my girlfriend'. You need to feel that experience and learn from it if you want to get there again.

“This was worst case scenario. I'm very disappointed with the result but not by the players.

“It's always hard if you lose, even if it's a league game. What we achieved this season is great. The team have made progress, ending up in the top six and playing in the final of the playoff.

“Of course if you play a final you give it your best shot and do everything in your power to win the game. It doesn’t matter how you play, the result is the most important thing.”

Of his own future, Stam said he is obviously ambitious, but is currently content at Reading. The 44-year-old former Manchester United defender joined the club in June 2016.

“I still have a contract at Reading and there is nothing there that's going to take me away. Of course you want to work at the highest level, I played there myself, but it doesn't mean that because we've achieved this this season I need to go away, I just need to see what [is] happening in the summer.

“I'm happy here so why shouldn't I? Before I came last season we spoke about what we wanted to do to get in the Premier League. Normally you don't get in the play-off final in the first season but we did. We've got a great bunch of lads. I'm still happy to be here and work here and to live around the area. It's a great club to work with.

“Congratulations to Huddersfield and good luck to them. We need to give it another shot next season.”