Burnley boss Brian Laws insists they were serious about yesterday's FA Cup win over Reading.

The Royals, fresh from their win at Liverpool, defeated Burnley through a goal from Gylfi Sigurdsson.

Laws lamented his team's failure to make the most of their dominant spell midway through the second half.

"We desperately wanted to get through to the next round, and we did not play as well as we were capable of," said Laws, who was in charge for only his second game since being appointed as Owen Coyle's successor.

"[Steve] Thompson up front had given it a go, even though he was sick during the night, then in the second half when we changed it with [Martin] Paterson we showed a bit more energy.

"We upped the tempo and looked much more dangerous.

"We had a good 20-minute spell in the second half and looked more like ourselves, passing it better.

"We created a few good chances, with some quality saves from their keeper which kept Reading in the game.

"We knew that if we did not take our chances, we were going to come under some pressure and the disappointing thing is that we were only three minutes from getting our first clean sheet in quite a while."