News and Views
New Season Fixture List In Full: Royals Face Tough Start
21 June 2017
By Hob Nob Anyone?
Reading's fixtures for the new 2017/2018 season have been released this morning and see the Royals kick-off with an away trip to QPR on Saturday 5 August. Reading face a tough start to their new Championship campaign with games against Fulham and Aston Villa at home following immediately after.
The end of the season isn't much kinder with games against Fulham, relegated Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich and Cardiff away to wrap up the season. The trip to Cardiff means that Reading both start the season and end the season playing away from home.
The traditional boxing day game is away at Bristol City this year, with a home game against Burton Albion on 23 December. The games are really packed in over the festive period with a trip to Barnsley on 30 December, followed up by a home game against Birmingham City just two days later on New Years day.
Having narrowly missed out on promotion to the Premier League after the defeat at Wembley on penalties in the play-off final, Reading might be considered as genuine promotion candidates this season. However, a look down the fixture list shows that promotion out of this league is a very tough job indeed. There are some big names in the Championship aiming for a top two finish - and we will certainly be hoping to avoid the play-offs this season.
Historically Reading always lose in play-off finals - but recently we have followed it up with a successful automatic promotion campaign the following season. For once, we will be hoping history repeats itself. We went up to the Premier League as Champions in 2011/2012 after defeat in the play-off final the season before. The same was true in 2001/2002 when we finished second in Division Two after losing to Walsall in the play-off final the season before.
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