Wolves Preview: Royals Need Win After Recent Defeats

03 March 2017
By Hob Nob Anyone?

Reading are back at home this weekend as Wolves come to town hoping to make the most of Reading's dip in form. After being in touch with the top two for most of the season, the Royals finally had to say goodbye to any outside chance of automatic promotion after defeats at Huddersfield and Brighton. Having slipped to fifth in the table, Reading are still well within the play-off positions, but will need more points to secure a top six finish this season. With Newcastle visiting on Tuesday night, and Reading winning just once in their last five league games, Saturday's visit of Wolves becomes a "must win" match.

While Reading need to points to maintain the chance of promotion via the play-offs, Wolves are also in desperate need as they find themselves just two points outside the drop zone. Wolves will be pleased to see the back of February after the month saw them play five games and lose all five. One of those was their cup exit to Chelsea, but the four league defeats included three defeats at home. The pick of the bunch was a 0-1 home defeat to relegation rivals Wigan. A word of warning for the Royals though - Wolves have won three out of their last fives away games in all competitions - including a 2-1 FA Cup victory at Liverpool. The outcome of this match is far from a definite.

There is nothing new to report on the injury front, with no new worries for Jaap Stam. Competition for places remains fierce and it will be interesting to see what changes Stam makes this week after two recent defeats. Stam never seems to like fielding the same team two matches in a row and is sure to tinker with his starting eleven once more as he still attempts to find his ideal starting line-up. Swift and Kelly both came off the bench during the defeat at Brighton and both probably deserve a starting place given their form this season - but will Stam shuffle things up in their favour. Loanee players Grabban and Mutch are yet to make an impression - perhaps Kermorgant and Swift will be favoured over them this weekend.

Our last five meetings with Wolves have seen just a single Reading win. You have to go all the way back to 2009 to find our last home win, when a second minute Wolves own goal separated the sides. We lost 0-2 at Wolves at the start of this season, drew 0-0 at home the season before, and also failed to score the game before that with a 0-1 defeat on the road. Reading are certainly due a goal against Wolves.

• Reading -v- Wolves - Match Report Archive

Recent Meetings With WOLVES

Discussion On This Story:

 Sutekh

» 02 Mar 2017 10:30

After the miserable last couple of games Reading get a chance to try and redeem things with the visit of Wolves to the Madejski Stadium

Wolves are not very well at the moment. In fact they are on a run of 5 successive league defeats and looking a little on the mangy side of things. However it should be noted that this is just the sort of team Reading have immense problems playing against and when you note that Wolves are actually a much better team on the road than they are away there can't be any room for complacency, so just thinking all the club need to do is turn up is something that should be taken out and shot right now. However, given the cr@p that was served up as a performance at Molyneux back in August, one hopes the players will anxious to prove themselves.

Sadly Wolves more useful players like Costa, Weimann, Bödvarsson and Dicko will all be available however forward options Ivan Cavaleiro and Joe Mason are both injured. Presuming they have an unchanged lineup from their defeat to Birmingham on Friday they'll be fielding;

Ikeme, Batth, Doherty, Hause, Edwards, Evans, Costa, Marshall, Bödvarsson, Enobakhare & Weimann

Reading still have problems with the usual bunch so no Quinn, Rakels, Ilori, Harriott, Weiser or Gravenberch and Reece is also still out. Berg is back and raring to go so perhaps there maybe a change to the starting line up that depressed everyone at Brighton:

Habsi, Gunter, Moore, McShane, Blackett, Evans, McCleary, Beerens, Williams, Kermorgant, Mutch

Wolves are very close to selling out their 2112 allocation of tickets apparently.

Referee

Not Robert Madley, see later below

Historically

Thirty Five league games have been played thus far between the hoops and the old gold and of those games things are a dead heat with 14 wins apiece.

Reading have managed to record 8 wins in the 17 league games played in Reading which is twice as many as Wolves. However the recent record is distinctly poor with only one Reading win in the last 7 home games - so there is some pride to fight for here if nothing else.

Everything also points to a very tight affair with either a draw or one goal deciding the outcome as it has been over 20 years since either team won a league game in Reading by more than that margin.

Reply

 Sutekh

» 02 Mar 2017 17:06

Yes, sorry it is Andy from West Yorkshire. I didnt realise there were two doing the rounds from the same place and accidentally picked the wrong one

Anyway



Previously is not so good

17 Aug 2016 > Newcastle United 4-1 Reading
07 May 2016 > Blackburn Rovers 3-1 Reading
03 Dec 2015 > Reading 0-1 Queen's Park Rangers
29 Aug 2015 > Brentford 1-3 Reading
25 Apr 2015 > Reading 0-2 Brentford
15 Jan 2015 > Milwall 0-0 Reading
05 Apr 2014 > Charlton Athletic 0-1 Reading
25 Jan 2014 > Ipswich Town 2-0 Reading

Reply

 genome

» 03 Mar 2017 10:57

"Wolves headed for huge away crowd after selling 1,700 tickets"

Not even half the stand

Reply

 Rusty royal

» 04 Mar 2017 14:51

Bigger game Tuesday

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