Rival Watch

[harry]

Today's fixtures to watch:

Brighton vs Burton Albion
Derby vs Bristol City
Leeds vs Cardiff
Norwich vs Nottingham Forest
QPR vs Huddersfield
Wolves vs Newcastle (5:30pm)

Most of those (on paper at least) look like wins for the top sides
Can see Warnock making it difficult for Leeds
Hoping Wolves raise their game for the TV
But you never know in the Championship

[Sutekh]

Today's fixtures to watch:

Brighton vs Burton Albion
Derby vs Bristol City
Leeds vs Cardiff
Norwich vs Nottingham Forest
QPR vs Huddersfield
Wolves vs Newcastle (5:30pm)

Really struggle to see anything other than nailed on home wins for the first 4 of those.

Newcastle should beat Wolves

QPR v Hudds will be interesting

If Reading screw it up this PM they could slip really badly overall.

[genome]

Brighton 1 Burton 0
Norwich 3 Forest 0
Derby 0 Bristol City 1

Forest having a mare after 20 minutes

[Winchester Royal]

Hudds 1-0 up

[genome]

QPR 0 Huddersfield 1
Derby 0 Bristol City 2

[genome]

ALOL

Derby 0 Bristol City 3

[Melton Royal]

Leeds 0-1 down to Cardiff.

Helpful

[genome]

Leeds 0 Cardiff 2

[Melton Royal]

Leeds 0 Cardiff 2

Shame innit??

[harry]

Huddersfield 5 wins in succession, 10 wins in 12. Closing in on top 2.

Points in last 6 games
Newcastle 14
Brighton 11
----------------------------
Huddersfield 15
Reading 14
Leeds 9
Sheff Wed 13
--------------------
norwich 14
fulham 10
barnsley 11
preston 9
derby 7

[genome]

Very interesting night with 3rd-6th all winning and top 2 both dropping points. Gonna be some run-in.

[From Despair To Where?]

Brighton starting to wobble and their next 7 games are no easier than ours.

[Sutekh]

But can Reading stand up and be counted against the likes of Huddersfield, Leeds, Brighton and Newcastle?

Not been overly impressive against the other current top 6 teams so far

Huddersfield. Got away with a win after they played with 10 men for a lot of the game
Brighton. Usual struggle but battled well to scrap out a point
Newcastle. Started well but were stitched up by dodgy refereeing at the start of the 2nd half and then collapsed
Leeds. Turned up and fart-arsed about in front of their defence for 90 minutes without creating anything and let in their only 2 shots
Sheff Wed. Played well and got the points but not before setting up the standard nervous finish

So I think Reading still have something to prove to these teams and hope they can step up to do so.

[Hound]

Norwich are probably the team i'm most worried about from outside the top 6. Undoubtedly some quality players there.

Sheff Weds seem to be playing pretty poorly and grinding out results - have no idea what that Akpan equaliser for Blackburn was disallowed for.

[paultheroyal]

A trawl around the other forums suggest Huddersfield are the team to fear based on current form and Reading are in, yep you guessed it "false position" and will fall away.

[LUX]

that mistake by the Newcastle keeper for Norwich's second almost makes me wonder if it was a fix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J1Sh8vcxZk

[Stranded]

But can Reading stand up and be counted against the likes of Huddersfield, Leeds, Brighton and Newcastle?

Not been overly impressive against the other current top 6 teams so far

Huddersfield. Got away with a win after they played with 10 men for a lot of the game
Brighton. Usual struggle but battled well to scrap out a point
Newcastle. Started well but were stitched up by dodgy refereeing at the start of the 2nd half and then collapsed
Leeds. Turned up and fart-arsed about in front of their defence for 90 minutes without creating anything and let in their only 2 shots
Sheff Wed. Played well and got the points but not before setting up the standard nervous finish

So I think Reading still have something to prove to these teams and hope they can step up to do so.

If we are seriously want to push the top 2 then we need to avoid defeat at Huddersfield and beat one or both of the top two. To get in the play-offs, we can probably manage that losing all those games but leaves little room for error against Wolves, Blackburn, Rotherham, Burton, Wigan and Forest.

[LUX]

we have eight away games left, five pretty daunting tbh, on current form.

(Huddersfield, BHA, Norwich, PNE, Weds)

Villa should be daunting, but they are going through an awful run at the moment.

Forest and Burton are easier, in theory.

We could win or lose any of those eight.

[Stranded]

So before we play again, we have

Barnsley V Brighton
Newcastle V Villa (Mon)
Ipswich V Leeds
Forest V Wednesday

Couple of tough games in there.

[Hound]

would fancy Forest to beat Weds and Ipswich to take at least a point out of that.