When : Saturday 12th March 2022, 3pm
Where : City Ground, Nottingham, NG2 5FJ
Capacity : 30,445
Reading are off to Nottinghamshire on Saturday, pretty much a year to the day since the last visit, hoping to avoid yet another pointless exercise in keeping a clean sheet and yet another ridiculous and total wasteful game of late substitutions.
Forest have lost 1 of their last 9 league games (at Cardiff in January) and have 2 wins and 3 draws from their last 5. They haven’t been beaten at home this year, have only failed to score in 1 game this year and have turned both Arsenal and Leicester out of the FA Cup (and are currently doing Huddersfield over in the same competition tonight as well). All of that is largely pointless though as Reading have proved themselves to be fairly incompetent against any opposition from any level in pretty much any sort of form.
Injury free Forest have both Lewis Grabban and Brennan Johnson scoring goals for fun - just the 22 between them so far - plus Ryan Yates and James Garner buzzing about doing dangerous things in midfield. But I’m sure PInce will come up trumps with a tactical stroke of genius - or at least something that doesn’t involve playing his son (a natural left winger) on the right and putting Meite on with 5 minutes to go - to nullify any hope that the men from Sherwood might have.
On the injury front Reading might have Laurent available again and Halilovic might get a go on the bench.
At least this Saturday sees Barnsley entertaining Fulham at 12.30 and Derby travelling to Bournemouth so there is some hope that no ground will be lost - and, therefore, if a miracle did occur what better day could there be for it (especially with a midweek trip to Boremuff next)?
Referee
Thomas “still 100% Reading and from games this season!” Bramall
Previously
06 Nov 21 > Birmingham City 1-2 Reading
02 Oct 21 > Cardiff City 0-1 Reading
Historically
This is the 24th season shared thus far with the tricky trees. 5 wins to show at the City Ground against Forest’s 12. Only 3 points from 3 draws in the last 7 visits though so this is going to be quite a challenge in this one, but then a trip to Slough or Bracknell would probably be quite a challenge (and those clubs probably get more Reading fans on a Saturday than Reading).
How to follow the game
- Get 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 a RoyalTV subscription
- BBC Radio Berkshire (FM : 104.4, 104.1 or 95.4 depending where you are in the area)