Missed chances and baffling cards were just some of the things that left Stevenage manager Steve Evans frustrated with their first loss of the season away to Reading.

Boro had Nathan Thompson sent off for two bookings in the first 22 minutes but still created some gilt-edged openings before Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan scored the first of two goals in a 2-0 success.

And Evans admitted it will take a rerun of the game before he can fathom out what Stevenage can learn from the defeat at the Madejski Stadium.

He said: "It's a bad day at the office for us isn't it, for a number of reasons, but we said after the last four wins that we'd learn from each of them. 

"We'll learn more from this, obviously. 

"There's a huge turning point in the game with the double yellow card, the second one is particularly harsh.

"The referee deduces that a coming together is a second yellow. That's disappointing as minutes before there should be a yellow card for a foul on Dan Butler, but that’s not given.

"We'll learn."

Ehibhatiomhan scored the first of his brace in the fourth minute of stoppage time at the end of the first half but four was also the number of times Boro really should have gone in front.

And that would have been massive says Evans.

"We should go in front," he admitted, "all of the lads accept that.

"You’d expect Jordan Roberts to at least hit the target, if not score. 

Aaron [Pressley] has a great header and I think most goalkeepers in this league concede that because he's gone back across him. It's a brilliant save [to push it onto the post]. 

"And Jake Forster-Caskey should score, he's mistimed his header as he goes in behind Aaron. 

"Goals change games, you know that, but decisions change games. 

"There's no doubt that both things changed the course of the game, our missed chances [and the cards].  

"Of course they missed some as we tried to get a goal back but I need to go back and look at the replay of the game, who should be cautioned, who shouldn’t. 

"There's just decisions that are baffling. We don't want to see lots of yellow cards but we've had a lot today, haven’t we?

"We'll get on with it."

He also looked at the goals against as avoidable things.

The boss said: "It’s a learning curve from young Finley Burns from a set-play. Dan Butler should do better defending the initial part when he gives a corner away but Finley doesn't get tight enough and we concede. 

"Then we get beaten by a ball over the top, which we wouldn’t normally concede in, and then it's hard for us. 

"We need a little break to get back in the game. If it stays 1-0, we throw a few men up and gamble a bit but when it's 2-0, it's pretty much an impossible task." 

There is also an ever-growing list of unavailable players, Kane Smith limping off injured and even Elliott List, who was named on the bench, never likely to feature.

"We couldn’t fill our bench," said Evans. "We’ve been unfortunate with injuries and we had Elliott on there but he told us yesterday afternoon that he wasn’t quite ready to start, or even take part in the game. 

"We thought he might fancy it but he didn’t. That happens. 

"We’ll see how we are and we’ll get ready and prepared for next week, but we need some bodies out of the treatment room, that is for sure."