News and Views
Reading Travel To Winless Brentford
15 September 2017
By Hob Nob Anyone?
Reading travel the short distance to Brentford this weekend hoping to improve on recent results. Both Reading and Brentford have suffered slow starts to the season, with Brentford still without a league win after seven games. The Bees are favourites with That's a Goal's accumulator tips to be relegated and are one off the bottom of the table with their only points of the campaign coming from three draws. Brentford fans will see this as a great opportunity for their first full three points, playing against a 17th placed Reading side who have only picked up two wins themselves in the league.
Despite securing up some impressive signings before the transfer window closed, the Royals were unable to find the net last Saturday and slumped to a 0-1 home defeat against Bristol City. It was a frustrating afternoon for Reading who did most things right but failed to convert their chances. The game saw new signings Aluko and Edwards both involved, and they will both be hoping to build on their debuts. Aluko played the full 90 minutes, but Dave Edwards came off the bench to replace Liam Kelly and will be hoping to claim a starting place.
Bodvarsson, back from injury, started the fixture but was guilty of wasting our best chances. Manager Jaap Stam may well vary things up front for the trip to Brentford but will still be missing Kermorgant who finished last season so strongly and is seriously missed this term. Reading will almost certainly need more than one goal if they are to collect three points from this fixutre - which is a huge ask. Our last clean sheet at Griffin Park was 23 games ago.
Last season we were on the wrong end of a 1-4 scoreline, with Kermorgant scoring our only goal from the penalty spot. However, the season before that, back in the summer of 2015 we were 3-1 winners with two goals from Blackman and one from Sa. A similar result feels hard to imagine right now even against a Brentford side that is well off the form they were expecting this season. The Bees should be desperate for the win, so it could be another frustrating afternoon for the travelling Reading fans.
Recent Meetings With Brentford
| DATE | COMPETITION | OPPOSITION | SCORE | REPORT |
| 14 February 2017 | Championship | Brentford (HOME) | W: 3-2 | Read report... |
| 27 September 2016 | Championship | Brentford (Away) | L: 1-4 | Read report... |
| 28 December 2015 | Championship | Brentford (HOME) | L: 1-2 | Read report... |
| 29 August 2015 | Championship | Brentford (Away) | W: 3-1 | Read report... |
| 25 April 2015 | Championship | Brentford (HOME) | L: 0-2 | Read report... |
| 04 October 2014 | Championship | Brentford (Away) | L: 1-3 | Read report... |
Discussion On This Story:
Sutekh
When : Saturday 16th September, 3pm
Where : Griffin Park, London, TW8 0NT
Capacity : 12,763
Away Stand : Brook Road Stand
What might I see in the area : Brentford Nylons
Well after the luckless affair last Saturday Reading get a chance to redeem themselves at a venue where, when they're bad, they're usually very bad.
Brentford have had a surprisingly poor start to their season that has seen just 3 draws from 7 games but that won't make things any easier in yet another local derby that isn't really.
Brentford, it seems, have been playing rather better than their results suggest and Sheffield Wednesday were mighty relieved to snatch a win on Tuesday night after coming from behind - and by all accounts should really have been dead and buried long before their equaliser.
Injuries for Reading amount to the usual faces although Obita is a possibility at left back (most likely on the bench, if at all). Whether Kelly is injured after his substitution v Bristol is still currently unknown to us mere punters but I expect it will be a case of perm anyone from the same squad available on Saturday.
Brentford have major doubts over Sergei Canos and Henrik Dalsgaard as well as still coming to terms with the loss of Jota, Maxime Collin and Harlee Dean to Birmingham on deadline day.
Referee
The next official up to demonstrate the fine art of refereeing is Cleveland's Tony Harrington
Previous
21 Feb 2017 > Huddersfield Town 1-0 Reading
10 Dec 2016 > Reading 2-1 Sheffield Wednesday
06 Feb 2016 > Reading 0-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers
26 Sep 2015 > Burnley 1-2 Reading
01 Oct 2014 > Leeds United 0-0 Reading
Historically
Reading have won roughly a quarter of the league games played at Brentford (10 out of 41) while losing on 19 occasions. Brentford have won 5 of the last 7 league games played between the sides (W5, D1, L1). Looks like Reading will have to score at least once to get anything from the game as Reading have failed to keep a clean sheet at Griffin Park since the days of Steve Death and 17 Sep 1973 came along. That's a total of almost exactly 44 years and 20 games
(but then Reading have only ever kept 2 clean sheets in the league at Griffin Park so perhaps that isn't really a surprise).How to follow the game
- Get a ticket and travel to Griffin Park
- Listen to Radio 5 Live and/or a myriad of other radio stations for score flashes
- Ring/text a mate for updates
- Use an iFollow subscription
- BBC Radio Berkshire (FM : 104.4, 104.1 or 95.4 depending where you are in the area)
Hound
First real time Stam will be having to leave fit capable players out of the squad altogether. Be interesting.
Can't decide whether I think this will be another away day thrashing against a side surely in a false position, or whether we are due our usual bounce-back-from-cr@p-defeat-victory
Top Flight
After a dissapointing defeat at home to City we really need to bounce back here at Griffin Park and get the points. We are falling behind the leading pack. This is quite an important game early in the season for us.
The Bees are in the bottom 2 for a reason. My mate at work who is a Bees fan says that they don't defend well. We saw that last season at our place where they threw away a 2-1 lead. If we go there with the same swagger that we showed at home to Villa and away to Birmingham I think we'll be able to outclass them. Hopefully Stam will go with a similar line-up as he did away to Brum and that should see us get the right result.
The Bees have lost a lot of key players. They have brought in quite a few new faces too but that will take time to gel together. It won't be easy and our lads will have to be on their game, but if they do that then I'm predicting a classy 3-0 victory for the Royals.
Snowflake Royal
Berg, for all his errors, seems to be one of the few players who will play a first time pass with pace to open up space and spark a move, rather than take a touch, look, touch then pass softly.
Snowflake Royal
Any description of what happened?
We're starting to get towards the point where this could be a little concerning. But it's all fine margins. Should have (and deserved to) beat Fulham and Bristol. Early on today.... we need to be better at coming from behind... time to show we can be.
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