When : Monday 11 December, 8pm
Where : Madejski Stadium, Reading, RG2 0FL
Capacity : 24,161
Colin is back. And so is another of his sides. A more than useful Cardiff City that are showing distinct signs of life. Now I like Colin as he polarises opinion and is a real character who speaks his mind in favour of his team and consequently causes much hilarity and/or annoyance amongst opposition supporters with some of his actions and “observations”. Either way, whether you love or loathe him, he is effective at building rather good teams at Championship level.
Cardiff are rather good and are certainly the best version of Cardiff that has been about since they won promotion to the PL in 2013. After 20 games they have only been beaten 3 times in the league (same as Wolves) and have won 13 games including all of their last 4. They have recorded wins at Middlesbrough and Wolves as well as comfortable home wins over Ipswich, Leeds and Sheffield United, as a result Reading will have to be in tip top form to get another one over on Colin.
Three former Biscuitmen help make up the Cardiff squad but while Sean Morrison is likely to play both Matthew Connelly and Greg Halford will probably not be involved. Only one Reading player used to be with Cardiff and that is Chris Gunter who managed 28 games there about 10 years ago
Thankfully this game is still a bit too soon for Kenneth Zohore to put in an appearance but as he has been missing for two months methinks they are rather better without him and certainly, one time Reading rumour, Omar Bogle is starting to prove his worth at Championship level. Cardiff will also be without Jazz Richards, Lee Camp, Kadeem Harris and Freddie Gounongbe while Aron Gunnarsson is also a doubt with an ankle injury.
As far as I am aware nothing has changed on Reading’s injury front so Stam is likely to have the luxury of naming unchanged line up for what would be an amazing FOURTH time and to be honest I don’t see why anyone would change a team that has started to find itself and looks to be on an upward curve (a fact that is likely to be confirmed or flatly denied by the games against Cardiff and Ipswich).
Lastly the game is on telly and Reading’s home league record on telly is not a very good one with one utterly cr@p and one indeterminately moderate performance plus two utterly cr@p results to show for the last two attempts
But then at least it’s not being played on a Saturday so there is some vague hope in there….
Referee
It’s Staffordshire’s Steve Martin again!
Previously....
23 Sep 2017 > Reading 1-1 Hull City
26 Aug 2017 -> Birmingham City 0-2 Reading
24 Jan 2017 > Reading 1-0 Fulham
15 Oct 2016 > Queen's Park Rangers 1-1 Reading
15 Mar 2016 > Brighton & Hove Albion 1-0 Reading
23 Jan 2016 > Reading 1-1 Sheffield Wednesday
19 Sep 2015 > Bristol City 0-2 Reading
25 Mar 2014 > Reading 1-3 Barnsley
Historically
Cardiff are one of those fairly regular opponents of Reading with games stretching all the way back to our Southern League days. Since joining the FL though there have been 56 league games with this game being the 29th at home against them. Of the previous 28 games Reading have won 12 and drawn 10 with the remaining 6 games going the way of the Welsh
Reading though have not been having the best of times at home against Cardiff as only 1 win (last season) has been mustered from the last 8 home games in all competitions though most of those games finished as 1-1.
Finally, Reading are really cr@p at keeping clean sheets in home league fixtures against Cardiff having managed precisely zero in the last 17 attempts.
Opponents view
http://www.cardiffcityforum.co.uk/viewt ... dcef0984da
How to follow the game
- Get a ticket and travel to the Mad Stad
- Listen to Radio 5 Live and/or a myriad of other radio stations for score flashes
- Ring/text a mate for updates
- Use an iFollow subscription
- BBC Radio Berkshire (FM : 104.4, 104.1 or 95.4 depending where you are in the area)
- It’s on SKY
