Garath McCleary hopes everyone connected with Reading Football Club are proud of what he and his team-mates produced at Wembley Stadium despite The Royals being unable to deliver the desired result in the FA Cup semi-final.

The Championship side were eventually defeated 2-1 in extra-time by high flying Arsenal but Reading’s goalscorer says he and his team-mates can hold their heads high after their display on Saturday evening.

“We played fantastic, all the boys put in a shift and hopefully we can do that in the next four games,” he said.

“We were really unlucky, we thought we could have nicked it toward the end of the 90 minutes.

“I hope we made all the fans proud and all our families proud because it was a good performance without getting the result.”

McCleary was on hand to level the scores early in the second period after Alexis Sanchez had given The Gunners a first half lead.

And the winger admits there was a degree of pre-destination about his goal.

“Someone told me I always score big goals,” he told TheFA.com.

“Sadly this wasn’t one that could either win the game or take it to penalties.”

The pace ace was also full of praise for the Reading support who were in full voice throughout.

However, he admits the players must treat their fans to that level of performance every week.

“They [the fans] were superb from the first minute all the way to the end of extra time so hopefully we made them proud,” he said.

“We have set a benchmark now and we need to take it on until the end of the season and into next season because we showed how good we are today.”