GUNNAR: FOCUS ON A STRONG FINISH

City's midfield warrior calls for a resilient end to 2014/15

Aron Gunnarsson handled the Friday morning press duties as the Bluebirds prepared to make the Sky Bet Championship trip to the Madejski Stadium and Reading for the first of two fixtures this Easter weekend.

The 25-year-old returned from international duty with Iceland earlier this week and was in buoyant mood ahead of the weekend visit to Berkshire, saying:“We [Iceland] beat Kazakhstan 3-0 in a European qualifier, which just shows how well we’re progressing,” he said. “We’re doing well at the moment, so hopefully we can get to the finals.

"I’m used to going away with the national team, and it’s always good to meet up with the boys I grew up with in Iceland - but I’m fully focused on finishing the season with Cardiff City on a high now.

"We’ve got ourselves on a bit of momentum recently, and that was during some difficult games. Taking points from Brentford away and Bournemouth and Birmingham at home shows that we’ve turned a corner as a team.

“It was hard to take, going out of the F.A. Cup the way we did [to Reading, back in January]. Conceding two late goals was something we shouldn’t have done, but we’ve got another chance against them on Saturday. We need to get ourselves as high up the League as we can.

“We’ve been too inconsistent this season; that’s the reason we haven’t been up there challenging. We’re working hard on that, and I think the group is getting better. The players we’ve got in now realise what we need to do, and we’ve been getting results recently.”

Watch Gunnar's pre-Reading media conference in full, here on Cardiff City Player