Reading 3 Tottenham Hotspur 1: Martin Jol spoke with some justification last week about his being the most consistent team outside the big four over the past two years. But this defeat ended a 10-match unbeaten run when "normally you would expect to get the three points".

Jol's comments came through gritted teeth: the reasons for Tottenham's unexpected slip were manifold and manifest. Goals from Nicky Shorey and Steve Sidwell ensured Tottenham's early lead from Robbie Keane's penalty was overturned before half-time, and Kevin Doyle's third was no more than the home team merited.

Nevertheless, the platform for a routine Spurs victory was there after only 23 minutes. Dimitar Berbatov had already been denied by Graeme Murty's goalline block before Hossam Ghaly was upended by Ibrahima Sonko in the penalty box.

But Keane's penalty told its own story about Tottenham's problems: it was the first Premiership goal a Spurs player has scored in an away match this season, that at Villa Park having been from Juan Pablo Angel's own-goal.

It should have been enough to provide Spurs with the spoils here, as a defensively minded, three-man central midfield should have closed out the result.

"You could sense their extra man in midfield was just beginning to make a difference," noted Steve Coppell of the period that followed his team's dominance after the first quarter-hour. "We lost it before and during their goal."

But lapses of concentration gave Reading a route back. Shorey's strike was a cracking effort from 23 yards, but he had been presented with the chance when Glen Little switched play with a single pass after almost the entire Spurs team had drifted toward their left flank.

Michael Dawson was slow in closing down Shorey's angle to goal, allowing the left-back to let fly; his shot bounced in front of Paul Robinson and in. The Reading crowd crowed over their beloved left-back, beginning a unilateral campaign for his inclusion in England's future.

But Coppell did not join the refrain to press the case for the 25-year-old, signed from Leyton Orient in 2001. "Shorey is very, very important to us," said Reading's manager. "He's a hell of a good player and different from the accepted type. His use of the ball is top quality for us. It's a foundation for us. In the transition from defence to attack it's very important; he's a key member of what we're about."

Shorey and Murty were indeed pivotal to Reading's win: the narrowness of Spurs' midfield formation should have been counteracted by their full-backs' foraging but, pushed back by their opponents' positive running, seldom did Benoit Assou-Ekotto or Lee Young-Pyo advance.

Reading did not let up, and there was a dereliction of defensive duties as they won a corner on the stroke of half-time. Even after attracting the attention of Little, the deliverer, with furious arm-waving, Doyle remained unmarked on the edge of the six-yard box. The ball bypassed the striker but found another unchallenged team-mate in Sidwell, six yards out. He duly crashed his shot into the roof of the net. "If you make that sort of mistake you can't win any games," said Jol.

Jol's criticism was fair, but the goal was a reward for Sidwell's box-to-box performance in which he and James Harper overshadowed a more numerous midfield, where another germ of Tottenham's problems lay. Ghaly and Jermaine Jenas were misplacing their passes and it meant that, when Didier Zokora broke up Reading's advances, he had no reliable outlet through which to build counter-attacks.

The early exchanges of the second half continued in similar vein and Jol recognised the need for Tom Huddlestone's enhanced range of passing, also sacrificing Lee for the added goal threat of Jermain Defoe.

It seemed to come good as Defoe, described yesterday by Sven-Goran Eriksson as having had a "very bad season" last year, was put through by Aaron Lennon. But his shot hit the side-netting and, from the goal-kick, Leroy Lita's flick found Doyle, who coolly cut behind Ledley King to shoot home.

The last word, though, was Jol's, and it was funereally intoned. "We had a good run of 10 games, eight wins, two draws, and then you get this," he said. "It is very disappointing, frustrating. You get angry a bit, as you do all the hard work and prepare yourself well and, if we had a good result, everything would have been fine. Carling Cup last eight and in Europe doing well, probably seventh in the league - and you throw it away."