At the other end, Steven Benda produced fine saves to keep out a Tom Ince free-kick and Yakou Meite's drive.

John Swift also headed straight at Benda, while Posh's Joe Ward had a late effort cleared off the line.

Reading stay fourth from bottom of the table, one place and two points above Peterborough who have a game in hand.

Neither Posh manager Darren Ferguson nor under-fire Royals boss Veljko Paunovic looked too satisfied with the outcome, particularly the latter who headed straight down the tunnel after the customary handshake.

From a performance perspective there was probably more for Ferguson to be happy about as his side dictated the game for large periods, but they remain without a Championship goal in more than six hours of football going into Saturday's 'six-pointer' with another bottom-three side in Derby.

Posh created enough chances, with Ward in particular testing the defence with a string of free-kicks, but that crucial opening goal would not come, particularly as Michael Morrison made goal-line clearances from Jeando Fuchs's header and late on from Ward, and Josh Knight missed a key header from close range.

Paunovic can look to the return of Meite for positives after a long lay-off, but he will rue the missed opportunities that might have eased the pressure growing on his time in charge.

He was the subject of chants wanting change from sections of the away support, and could only watch helplessly as Lucas Joao fired straight at Benda having done the hard work, while Swift's header was an easy take for the German.

Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire:

"It's 32 shots in two games, we've not scored a goal. The performance levels were good, but the result was rubbish for us.

"We were dominant first-half and we had the wind which helped. We spoke at half-time how we could cope with playing against it, but again second-half I felt we were pretty much the dominant team.

"We are finding it hard to do the hardest thing, which is score a goal. The performance came second tonight, it was about winning the game, but my players have done everything to win it but didn't get the break we need.

"We move on from a must-win game tonight to a must-win game on Saturday."

Reading boss Veljko Paunovic told BBC Radio Berkshire:

"We could have got all three points. It wasn't a pretty game and a difficult game to play with the weather conditions, for us who want to get the ball down and play.

"We adapted very well, the first half it was hard to exit with the ball from the backline, and get power on the ball. Once we did that, and put pressure on their backline, we had a couple of set-pieces that were dangerous.

"Second-half we had the advantage of the strong wind, we looked to play the ball in behind and rushed a bit.

"The conditions weren't good, we had to choose between being safe or being sorry. But the team showed amazing physical output, and amazing patience and cohesion, working hard and winning second-balls.

"The result of that was the chance we had at the end of the game that could have brought us all three points - Lucas Joao did everything right but the execution."