Jem Karacan has warned his team-mates they will need to improve their performances in the upcoming Premier League games if they want to start moving up the table.

The midfielder admitted he too needs to up his game following the Royals’ indifferent start to the season.

“Performances can obviously be better, we know that,” said the 23-year-old.

“As a team we need to improve collectively, and as individuals we’ve got to be better.

“We assess ourselves after every game and I myself could be doing more.”

The Royals return to action this weekend, and there won’t be many tougher games this season than a trip to Anfield to play Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool.

“You know what Brendan’s team is going to be like, you know they’re going to be in your face,” said Karacan.

“They are going to try and win the ball back high-up the field and going to pass it a lot, and look to break you down so we know what we’re going to get.”

“But we’ll do what we normally do, make it hard for them, and give them a really tough game.

“Hopefully we will show our quality and with the likes of Jobi (McAnuff), Jimmy (Kebe) and Pavel (Pogrebnyak) up front, and Noel (Hunt) has got a couple of goals recently so we’ve shown we’ve got the quality.

“We’ll work hard in training and go there with confidence high and fingers crossed get a win.”

And Karacan is looking forward to playing against one of his sporting idols, Reds’ captain Steven Gerrard.

“Steven’s a great player and it’s going to be a tough game against him and Nuri Sahin, but they’ve got Jonjo Shelvey and Joe Allen too.

“It’s always difficult to play against these types of players but they’re the ones you want to play against.

“You want to prove to people you can put in a good performance and show how good you are as well.”

Brian McDermott’s side currently lie in 18th position in the Premier League and remain without a win, despite coming close on several occasions.

But Karacan believes there’s no reason for supporters to be down-hearted just yet.

“Arguably we should have picked up six points from the last two games,” he said.

“Some people said against Swansea we didn’t deserve to win but we were 2-0 up and we put ourselves in a good chance to win the game.

“And against Newcastle we know it was a handball that killed us so we could be looking at things very differently.

“But we are are where we are and we’ve got to go to Liverpool on Saturday and put in a good performance.

“We’ll hopefully get another point or three points and push ourselves up the table a bit more.

“We’re frustrated we haven’t got as many points on the board as we deserve so far.”

The Turkish midfielder, who was called up for the first time to his national side at the weekend, believes the international break could have come at just the right time to turn the side’s fortunes around.

“It’s a nice chance to take a step back from it all and rest for a few days,” said Karacan. “There was an under-21s game, which a few of the boys were involved
in.

“Jason Roberts, Danny Guthrie and Adam Le Fondre all got some minutes under their belt so they’ll be a lot stronger for it.

“They will be pushing the lads in the starting XI for the next game so that’s what it’s about.

“There’s great competition coming through and great competition for spaces and that’s what we need for us to progress.”

Karacan has been playing catch-up with other member of the Royals’ squad , after having his ankle broken at the end of last season.

He made his first appearance midway through pre-season, in the Royals’ 2-2 draw down at League One side Bournemouth.

“It was disappointing not to get a full pre-season under my belt,” he said.

“I did get a good chunk of it though and I was doing a lot of running and probably did catch up with the majority of the lads by the end.”

Karacan’s first league appearance came at Stamford Bridge against European champions Chelsea.

“To be thrust into that game was brilliant for myself and for the mananger to show the faith that he did was great.

Reading’s game at Swansea was Karacan’s fourth league appearance of the season, and Karacan says his most recent partner Jay Tabb is a pleasure to play alongside.

“I love playing with Jay,” he said.

“You know what you’re going to get from him and he knows what he’s going to get from me.

“We work hard for each other, we bounce off each other and he was brilliant against QPR.

“Fingers crossed whoever is going out there on Saturday they go in and put in a good performance against Liverpool.

“If we can go there and do what we know we can do and put in as good a performance as we did last time at Anfield then we can come out with a positive result.

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