Oliver Norwood targeting FA Cup glory with Reading

The Royals reached the quarter-finals with a 3-1 win over West Brom at the Madejski Stadium on Saturday.

Victory was overshadowed after Albion’s Chris Brunt was hit by a coin which was thrown from the away section after the final whistle.

Reading were beaten semi-finalists last season, losing 2-1 in extra time to Arsenal, and Norwood wants it to help them this term.

“We enjoyed the run last year and the experience of getting to Wembley and playing Arsenal in the semis,” said the 24-year-old Northern Ireland international.

“Hopefully we can replicate that this year – and you never know, maybe go one step further.

“We’ll take anybody in the next round. It’s the luck of the draw. We’ll look forward to playing whoever we’re given.

“We’re confident at home – we’ve picked up our home form recently, and hopefully we can keep doing that.”

Norwood set up Paul McShane and Michael Hector as Reading came from behind after Darren Fletcher’s opener.

Lucas Piazon completed the scoring in injury time and Norwood insisted they have to focus on climbing the Sky Bet Championship, with Brian McDermott’s side currently 16th.

“The league is your bread and butter and this is a bonus,” he told the club’s official site.

“Getting to the latter stages of the cup is a bonus, and the league is the most important.

“We want to pick up points as soon as we can to secure our position and start looking up in the league.”

Albion will punish any fan found guilty of throwing a coin at Brunt while police are treating the incident as assault with the Football Association also investigating.

To add to their problems they lost Jonny Evans to a hamstring injury with Gareth McAuley and Craig Dawson already sidelined.

Boss Tony Pulis added: “I picked a good team, a strong team. The disappointing thing is Jonny Evans coming off with a hamstring injury late on, they get their third goal with Jonny off the pitch. He is going to be out for a few weeks now as well.”

Meanwhile, Reading manager McDermott hailed Michael Hector after the Chelsea loanee helped fire the Royals into the FA Cup quarter-finals.

McDermott said: “He was a Reading player (before the Chelsea move) and got his chance here, he is playing for us.

“He hasn’t got one eye on Chelsea in the summer, he has both eyes on Reading. I have spoken to him about playing that (holding central midfielder) role, he can play for Chelsea in that role, I have spoken to them about Michael playing there and they are happy. He was terrific today, he did a really good job and it’s good news for him going forward.

“I know where he has come from, every time we asked him to go on loan back in the day he said ‘I’ll go’. He has been to a lot of places and you have to admire that. He hadn’t been playing but we’ve changed the system and in training he has been terrific.”