When : Saturday September 21, 3pm
Where : Toughsheet Community Stadium, Burnden Way, Horwich, Bolton, BL6 6JW
Capacity : 28,723
Well if we still have a club on Saturday it'll be making it's weary way up north for a visit to Bolton for a game that possibly wouldn't be a surprise to anyone if it turned out to be Reading's last ever FL game, though realistically the club is likely to limp on to Christmas.
Pretending now that there's nothing wrong at camp Madejski then this is a game between two sides who have had disappointing starts to the season. Reading officially got their season of to a disappointing start after the god awful showing v Orient last week while Bolton have been consistently misfiring and have lumbered their way to being 3 points adrift of Reading in the table after a nicely rounded out 4-0 home stuffing from Huddersfield last weekend.
Charity FC are probably just the right team to be visiting the Toughsh*t Stadium though as Bolton have not won any games at home so far and have conceded 6, while failing to score, in their last two home games alone. Before that they were held to draws by Mansfield in the League Cup and Wrexham in the league. The 1-1 draw with Mansfield featured their only home goal so far, so plenty of unwanted records for the Trotters to break this weekend.
Bolton brought in 9 players in the summer including Luke Southwood from Cheltenham but Luke has yet to feature for Bolton so you're unlikely to see him saving the day on Saturday. Threats come from Dion Charles and Victor Adeboyejo who are the only players to have scored in the league for Bolton so far, with 1 goal apiece.
Reading will still be considering who is best to replace Pereira after CBBC was less than impressive v Orient. Dorsett and Craig will likely continue as full backs and one would expect Knibbs to start.
Referee
Sebastian Stockbridge
Previously
13 Apr 24 > Barnsley 2-2 Reading
Historically
Just the 3 wins to show from 17 previous league visits to Bolton Wanderers and all league games have been played in the years since 1984. Only one clean sheet has been managed by Reading in those games as well. Bolton have managed more than double the number of Reading wins so Bolton away is a game that usually results in a bad case of depression.
However, on the upside, this century Reading have only lost 2 of their 8 visits to Bolton (W2 D4 L2)...
How to follow the game
- Get a ticket and travel to the game
- Listen to Radio 5 Live and/or a myriad of other radio stations for score flashes
- Ring/text a mate for updates
- Use an RoyalTV subscription
- BBC Radio Berkshire (FM : 104.4, 104.1 or 95.4 depending where you are in the area)