When : Friday, 7th October 2022, 8pm
Where : Loftus Road Stadium, South Africa Road, London, W12 7PA
Capacity : 18,439
Annoyingly moved for the ****** telly, this game is going to be as hard as you get in this division especially given Reading’s inability to change much given the ongoing injury problems. At least, though, QPR have had two awkward away trips to handle not least all the way to Sheffield on Tuesday. Trouble is they won both and are now just 1 point behind Reading.
QPR were useful last season but faded, over the summer they seem to have consolidate their squad slightly with a few useful loanee youngsters from the PL and the permanent captures of Jake Clarke-Salter from Chelsea and Leon Balogun from Rangers. Consequently they seem to be re-assuming the a mantle of being rather good .
Form is pretty impressive too with 5 wins and a draw from their last 7 games, so this isn’t going to be easy especially after January’s performance there which hopefully will serve as something that Reading will want to put right.
The usual pain in the arse for Reading will be supplied by Lyndon Dykes and Ilias Chair (4 goals between them so far). However the main threat actually looks to be the former Arsenal and Benfica youngster Chris Willock who has already bagged 6 goals from his midfield position, and Stefan Johansen - so the fakes’ midfield is going to have to be marshalled very carefully as that would seem to be the area from which most damage is produced.
7 out injured for Reading and none expected back in time for this game while QPR will have 2 players (Rob Dickie and Taylor Richards) unable to partake of kicking a bit of plastic about a 1940s cowshed in West London.
Referee
Thomas “away games only” Bramall
Previously
12 Mar 22 > Nottingham Forest 4-0 Reading
06 Nov 21 > Birmingham City 1-2 Reading
02 Oct 21 > Cardiff City 0-1 Reading
Historically
QPR and Reading are regular opponents. Right back into Victorian times they’ve been knocking six bells out of each other with the only gap of any real note being when QPR caught a bout of ambition back in the late 60s which saw them disappear into Loftusier circulation for the best part of 3 decades. Luckily Reading had been successfully vaccinated against ambition at some point in the mid 1950s and so managed to avoid such pretensions until well into the 1990s.
Yet despite this and the ongoing protestations from both camps over who has the actual right to wear blue and white hoops this is yet another of those should be derby games that aren’t derby games.
So this is the 49th season and 97th time the two clubs have gone in search of Football League points. It’s therefore the 49th visit to the “Meccano bowl”, that hybrid matchbox of steel and wood that masquerades as a football stadium down in deepest, darkest Shepherd’s Bush.
As you’d probably expect the home side has had much the better of things with Reading managing only 12 victories compared to the 21 so far notched by the “fakes”. Recently though there hasn’t been much for Reading to live up to at Loftus Road as the recent run there has seen just 2 wins in the last 10 league trips all capped offf by last season's utterly pathetic display and resultant 4 goal (should have been twice that) hammering.
Reading owe QPR something. But we’d probably all be happy with a draw.
How to follow the game
- Get a ticket (if you can afford it)
- Listen to Radio 5 Live and/or a myriad of other radio stations for score flashes
- Ring/text a mate for updates
- Use a RoyalTV subscription
- BBC Radio Berkshire (FM : 104.4, 104.1 or 95.4 depending where you are in the area)
