Crystal Palace slipped to their fourth consecutive league defeat after suffering a 3-0 reverse away at Reading.

Manager George Burley handed two players their Palace debuts, throwing the on-loan from Everton James Vaughan straight into attack and partnering Hull loanee Anthony Gardner with Paddy McCarthy at centre back.

The Eagles more than matched the Royals in the opening exchanges and should have gone ahead in the 12th minute after Owen Garvan hung a corner over to the far post only for McCarthy to blaze over from close range.

Moments later the lively Kieran Djlali was tormenting Matt Mills, forcing the Reading captain to mis-time his tackle and bring the Palace winger down just outside the box. Referee Keith Hill deemed the offence worthy of only a yellow card.

Mills thought he had opened the scoring in the 35th minute, only to see his header beat Julian Speroni and smack against the crossbar. Reading didn’t have wait long to take the lead, Shane Long turning McCarthy and taking a tumble with the Palace defender on his back to win a penalty in the 37th minute. The Republic of Ireland striker dusted himself off to take the spot-kick himself, sending Speroni the wrong way to make it 1-0.

On the stroke of half-time James Vaughan thought he had levelled for Palace, but his half volley was met at full stretch by Federici.

After the break Pablo Counago came on to bolster the Eagles attack and should have equalised in the 50th minute, the Spaniard just failing to connect with Vaughan’s low cross.

Reading were awarded another penalty in the 65th minute, Julian Bennett harshly adjudged to have tripped Shane Long. New-boy Ian Harte converted the spot-kick to effectively kill the game off.

Jimmy Kebe added extra gloss to the scoreline when he ran onto Brian Howard’s through ball to fire past Speroni in injury time..