When : Saturday, 25th August 2018, 3pm
Where : Villa Park, Trinity Road Birmingham B6 6HE
Capacity : 42,785
Away Stand : Doug Ellis Stand, towards the North end of the stadium.
What might I see in the area : Birmingham
Off to the Villa next for our rag bag of misfiring misfits as they go in search of another point or three. It may well be highly unlikely that Saturday will see any return for the team’s efforts but if they can persist with the general level of performances that they’ve shown in all but one game so far this season then at least there’s some hope.
Barrow seems to be fit again and we’re told Ilori’s thigh problem was just a minor knock so I’d expect him to be in contention for a place. In addition, there could be a chance of Chris Gunter being fit enough to make the bench as well which would leave one of the shortest injury lists ever seen at Reading in the last 2 years (by my reckoning just Obita, Edwards, Harriott and McCleary).
Villa are annoying me. They’re meant to be facing a tough financial situation but there doesn’t seem to be too much affecting the squad they have and Yannick Bolaise is the latest name expected to be joining them on loan before Saturday.
As with Blackburn, Villa are also unbeaten and still as dangerous as ever. True that it was a late equaliser they needed v Brentford on Wednesday but reports of the game seem to indicate that Villa were unlucky to be in that situation so a visit from the mighty Reading isn’t really going to induce to much panic in their ranks.
As it’s a Saturday, the good news is that Reading are away so that’s one less curse to worry about but it could be that Reading are trying to match the 1959/1960 season which saw Reading lose 3, draw 1 then lose another 3 before finally recording a league win. If Reading were to match that season’s results though then it would actually be a reasonably successful season as they finally finished in 11th place.
Referee
England’s Darren England takes control of only his second ever Reading game and he’s yet to award a goal to anyone though I suspect it won’t take too long to change that on Saturday.
Previously
13 Jan 2018 > Hull City 0-0 Reading
Historically
It took 5 totally pointless failures to record any form of pointage at Villa Park a couple of season ago, before that win the only thing the club had earned from a visit was a relegation in 1971. Last season normal service was resumed so it’s now 6 defeats and 1 win in the 7 league trips up there.
How to follow the game
- Get a ticket and travel
- 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)
