News and Views
Royals Go To Swansea Looking For First Win
05 October 2012
By Hob Nob Anyone?
Reading travel to Swansea City this weekend still looking for that elusive first Premier League victory of the season. Reading were denied their first three points against Newcastle at home last weekend when the Royals led with seven minutes to go only to see a handball goal allowed. The Royals might still have won the fixture but were denied by the goalkeeper and the post in the last few minutes.
After an impressive start to the season, Swansea now lie midtable after three straight league defeats without managing to score a goal. You can't help but think this is exactly the kind of fixture that the Royals need to get at least a point, but hopefully three, if they are going to keep outside the bottom three.
After last weekend's impressive performance against Newcastle, it seems likely that Brian McDermott will stick with the same side. That means that McCarthy will keep his place in goal at the expense of Adam Federici. With McDermott having players return from injury over the past couple of weeks he has plenty of options across the team, but the midfield is likely to be last season's familiar set-up of McAnuff, Leigertwood, Kebe and Karacan. Leigertwood is reported to have a slight injury but it shouldn't prevent him from taking part.
The last time the two sides met was, of course, in May 2011's Championship play-off final at Wembley when Swansea earnt promotion to the Premier League. As if anyone needed reminding, we went three goals down before half time in that game and looked dead and buried until a second half come back still ended in disappointment and a 2-4 defeat. Reading also lost the other two league meetings that season - both 0-1 - and will be hoping to turn that winless run around on Saturday.
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