Everton have had their noses bloodied by lesser mortals in recent weeks so were grateful for the arrival of the Premier League's worst travellers to maintain their pursuit of Champions League football. A routine victory kept them within six points of the top four but a deep cut to their captain Phil Jagielka's ankle left them fretting after the final whistle.

Two minutes had passed in what turned out to be Everton's second league win since 2 January, when Reading striker Adam Le Fondre's over-zealous challenge felled the England defender. Jagielka was unable to continue and, according to David Moyes departed the ground in need of a hospital visit. "Jags is going to get surgery on his ankle to stitch it up. It's a bad, bad gash," the Everton manager said. "I don't mind robust challenges but I do mind one that puts out one of my best players. He might be out for a couple of weeks."

Brian McDermott absolved his player of blame. "Adam is not that type of player, he's a very honest player," the Reading manager said. "There is no way that Adam is a player that would 'do' anybody."

Having relinquished a winning position in the dying embers of the previous week's match at Norwich and also unexpectedly dropped points at home to relegation-threatened Aston Villa this year, it appeared the latest in a catalogue of setbacks might further disrupt Everton. They were already without the goalkeeper Tim Howard, whose jarred back in the FA Cup replay victory over Oldham terminated a sequence of 210 consecutive league appearances, three shy of Neville Southall's club record.

It meant a league debut for the Slovakia international Jan Mucha almost three years since his arrival from Legia Warsaw. But aAfter shaking off their early lethargy, Everton ensured it was Reading's Stuart Taylor who was the busier of the two goalkeepers. An ankle sprain in training on Friday ruled out Adam Federici and presented the perennial No2 Taylor with his 69th appearance in league football since signing professional forms with Arsenal in the summer of 1997. The 32-year-old's previous one had come in April 2009 for Cardiff at Preston. Ominously, he had been on the wrong end of a 6-0 scoreline.

However, Taylor acquitted himself admirably until the returning Belgian midfielder Marouane Fellaini's unruly barnet brought order to the contest by connecting with Seamus Coleman's inviting right-wing cross three minutes before the break. Only Taylor's fingertips kept out Fellaini's audacious volley from the most acute of angles in first-half injury time.

"He has got a lot of really good attributes, he can get better but he has an awful lot going for him and on his day he can be a handful," Moyes said.

Perhaps preoccupied with Fellaini's burst forward, Reading backed off Steven Pienaar on the hour with calamitous consequences, as a searing drive left Taylor helpless. By the midpoint of the second period it was game over as another Belgian, Kevin Mirallas, seized on Pienaar's pass, flashed his eyes one way and sent the ball the other to beat Taylor at his near post.

To their credit, Reading, who had struck the upright through Le Fondre with the scoreline goalless, refused to throw in the towel, and were rewarded when the substitute Hal Robson-Kanu nodded in an Ian Harte centre slung in from the left six minutes from time.

Even harder away fixtures are on the horizon for the Premier League new boys, with trips to Manchester United and Arsenal up next, but McDermott believes memories of last year's promotion campaign allied to their togetherness can inspire a successful survival fight. "We have finished the last three seasons very strongly and if we can do the same again it will give us a real chance. There's nothing in it if you look at it," he said.