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When : Saturday 22nd October 2022, 3pm
Where : Select Car Leasing Stadium, Reading, RG2 0FL
Capacity : 24,161
After 2 games of woeful cr@p, comes the annual visit from Bristol City and no real clue what to expect from them as they’ve been rather erratic. Safe to say then that this one isn’t going to be easy given they comfortably won at WBA on Tuesday while Reading couldn’t be bothered against the same opposition at home last Saturday.
Form wise City have been pretty good and then pretty ****** awful with Tuesday’s showing at the Hawthorns being only their second win in their last 8 attempts, however what it does show is a team that can play if they are allowed and that seems to be a real issue for Reading at the moment as the Royals are turning up and letting teams play for some ****** stupid reason. See last week v WBA followed by the attempt to “sit back and rest” while Swansea tried to claw back a 2 goal deficit….
This game is now rather important to Reading, they really need a win as the next game is the ominous trip to Burnley followed by another midweek TV game at the ever unforgiving Luton so points really have to be collected otherwise the terrific start could well begin to morph into the Paunovic nightmare start from last season.
Top of the “must be stopped” list is the usual pain in the Reading arse of Nakhi Wells who already has 7 goals, then there’s a very useful Tommy Conway to watch and the experienced Andreas Weimann too, finally, usually off the bench, comes Antoine Semenyo so there’s going to be no rest for what’s left of Reading’s defence.
So come on Mr Ince instead of sitting back and trying to counter the opposition please play to the forward strengths of Andy Carroll et al and give the Robins serious problems to worry about rather than just fart arsing about hoping for a break. Keep their defence and midfield busy trying to stop Reading then they might get frustrated and make mistakes - certainly rather that than to total tripe of the last couple of games.
As ever Reading’s injury problems continue to grow with Yiadom back on the list (though he would have been suspended anyway after his 5th booking of the season). This particular crisis has seen 7 (SEVEN) central defenders (well 6 plus a right back who hasn’t done too badly there) reduced to just 2 left so Holmes and McIntyre will start and PI will have to decide whether to revert to a traditional back 4 given his available resources or try one of the youngsters (Abbey or Clarke) there or try shoehorning Loum or Mbengue into there instead.
As ever Reading’s opposition have naff all injury problems with City just missing Kal Naismith.
Referee
John Busby
Previously
19 Feb 22 > Preston North End 2-3 Reading
03 Jan 22 > Reading 2-2 Derby County
29 Sep 21 > Derby County 1-0 Reading
Historically
This will be the 99th time the two teams have met in the league. Pretty even down the years with 40 wins to the Biscuitmen and 40 to the Robins with 18 draws. At home Reading have 25 wins to 14 defeats (10 draws) and have netted on 79 occasions while conceding 67. Not much to live up to given last year’s utterly pathetic home showing against City back in August 2021 so hopefully things will be better this time round.
How to follow the game
- Get a ticket
- Listen to Radio 5 Live and/or a myriad of other radio stations for score flashes
- Ring/text a mate for updates
- Use a RoyalsTV subscription (audio only)
- BBC Radio Berkshire (FM : 104.4, 104.1 or 95.4 depending where you are in the area)