Play Offs Start To Slip Away

When : Saturday March 14 2026, 3pm

Where : Madejski Stadium, Reading, RG2 0FL

Capacity : 24,161
Improving visitors from the south west next.
Plymouth are the second of the three relegated sides to travel to the SCL this season and let’s hope it turns out to be better than the dreadful Huddersfield performance we were all exposed to back in August. Hoping the Mansfield let down will give something to rally against.
Like Reading, the third division is very much the usual home for the Pilgrims as they have spent many seasons bouncing around this level too. After their brief sojourn in the Championship they were probably among many people’s favourites to be bobbing around the play off places at least but fortune had other ideas and a poor start to the season saw them in the bottom 4 by the late Autumn. However there wasn’t any panic in the board room and Tom Cleverly, only appointed over the summer, retained his management role and now Plymouth are very much looking up rather than down.
In fact only Lincoln and Cardiff have better away form so, by a long way, this isn’t going to be the same challenge that Reading received at Home Park earlier in the season. Recent results in the last 6 league games have seen the Plymouth army (and it is an army as we know that the away end will be packed out again, as it is every time we meet, particularly as this is one of the more local games for them) stuff Cardiff 5-2 at home and clock up good wins at Blackpool (4-0), Wigan (3-0) and Orient (3-1) so you can see they’re a capable side while also being relatively free flowing on the goals front.
Without a doubt the big threat is going to come from their forward line with Laurent Tolaj (13 goals) and Aribim Pepple (12 goals) finding things relatively comfortable, if not easy, at this level especially when combining with the likes of Owen Oseni, Xavier Amaechi and Caleb Watts so Reading will need to be very well rehearsed and organised defensively to ensure they can keep on top of that little lot.
January saw minimal but shrewd change to the Plymouth squad with Wes Harding arriving on loan from Millwall to help settle the defensive issues, Ronan Curtis arriving permanently from Port Vale to team up again with his former strike partner Laurent Tolaj and Huddersfield midfielder Herbie Kane also joining on loan.
DWilliams is injured again as, presumably, is the backup keeper Stevens, so the team won’t be much different from the shambles in Nottinghamshire, but it needs to be better, much, much better.
Referee
Sebastian Stockbridge
Previously
21 Sep 24 > Bolton Wanderers 5-2 Reading

13 Apr 24 > Barnsley 2-2 Reading
Historically
Surprisingly, given the number of years these two teams have spent stuck in the third tier, this is only the 30th season shared together and so this will be the 60th league game played. Of the previous 29 home games Reading just have the edge with 12 victories to Plymouth’s 10. As you can see from that fact, the Pilgrims have a tendency to do well in Reading, in fact it wasn’t until the 8th league meeting at home that Reading actually managed to beat them for the first time. In the last 5 league games at home Reading have won 2 and drawn 2 with just 1 defeat (but we all know which game that was :evil: ).
How to follow 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)

Or you can always just go and get a ticket

Actually dreading this one with a full away end, they`re going to be noisy and the team are flying. do the footy buses run at half time? :D

Plymouth have really played themselves into the play-off picture. They'd go above us with a win and could potentially go level on points with sixth. Their next five, however: Reading (A); Stevenage (H); Huddersfield (H); Bradford (A); Bolton (H).

Is this a grassroots fixture?

Not confident in the slightest after that non-performance on Tuesday but at the same time we always seem to bounce back after a defeat so perhaps there's a case for optimism.

Getting 4-3 Reading v Plymouth vibes all over again :D for the older ones amongst us!! This should suit us better than Mansfield, for one the pitch should be much better and we always seem to play better against the how do i say this, the better footballing teams.

Plymouth are going to make a lot of noise so we need to start quickly and try and shut them up, pretty much like at Christmas at their place!

With them bringing 3,000 fans this should easily be the biggest home crowd of the season! should be around 14,500 - 15,000, how we doing on ticket sales Clyde!!!

I think this time it will be much more difficult particularly as we played nearly the whole game down there against 10 men.

I'll go for a 1-1 with one of our centre-backs scoring with a header.
The other prediction is for LR to make subs in the 60th minute.

I read the other day that he has made more subs per game than any other manager in the division.

Their form over last 20 odd games is pretty much the same as ours - mildly better but boils down to 1 additional draw over 10 games.
(for them, 21 games since last being bottom - won 12 drawn 3 lost 6, 1.86 ppg, a like for like 22 games is lost 7, 1.77 ppg and well yeah that's the same as us)
and ... we ... haven't?

I find it hard to judge Plymouth, other than the dismantling of Cardiff, this good run of theirs has come against teams struggling at the bottom and even then they managed to lose to Rotherham who are in a bad run.
Think I'm just looking for reasons to remain positive.

With the new ticketing site, it has complicated my estimates a bit. That said, it looks like just over 12,000 sold in the home end at the moment; so 15,000 total.

Ouch. Horrible run for them, But could go one of two ways if they do well there against other PO contenders they will get a PO spot
Plymouth always stick in my mind for the defeat they inflicted on us on the first game of the 05/06 season
Memories

Play like we have for what feels like forever and we could suffer a proper 4/5-goal pasting here. So much of our recent 'form' has relied on opposition teams not being able to get on the end of crosses and their players not being able to finish chances. Plymouth are that ominous combination of being in red-hot form and will be absurdly well-supported.
But, knowing us, we'll probably manage to somehow scrape an unbelievably ugly and ill-deserved win against them.

Ouch. Horrible run for them, But could go one of two ways if they do well there against other PO contenders they will get a PO spot
Plymouth always stick in my mind for the defeat they inflicted on us on the first game of the 05/06 season
Memories
Reminds me a bit of our run at the back end of the 2011-12 season (position before we played them):

Blackpool (H) - 5th

West Ham (A) - 3rd

Leeds (H) - 10th

Brighton (A) - 7th

Southampton (A) - 1st

Of course, we won the lot.

Saw this earlier on Twitter -
https://x.com/i/status/2032499212798095668

https://www.hellorayo.co.uk/greatest-hits/berkshire-north-hampshire/news/reading-fc-shirt-sponsor-donates-charity

A lovely gesture for a very good cause

Dorsett, D Williams and Lane all start

Derrick back but Ward dropped!
Young back on the bench.

Pereira

Nyambe DWilliams O’Connor Dorsett

Wing Savage

Lane Doyle RWilliams

WiFi

Anyone found out what Stevens’ injury is ?

Patton injured ?

O'Connor is lucky to retain his place as is Dorsett to come back in and Ward unlucky to drop out for Dorsett or Williams coming back in.
Doyle back in the centre where he belongs.

Leam saying Plymouth has had a total change in playing style since Boxing Day, scored 27 times since then, mainly from set pieces so I presume Reading players will also be aware and not be too anxious to give away set pieces if they can be avoided.

That feels like a more natural shape. I hope Lane seizes this start as an opportunity to prove himself. And Kelvin can’t dine out on that hattrick forever.

The hattrick that he scored literally the game before last? That's an odd thing to say.

More like
Pereira

Nyambe DWilliams O’Connor Dorsett RWilliams

Wing Savage

Lane WiFi Doyle

The hattrick that he scored literally the game before last? That's an odd thing to say.

Tell me which words are troubling you and I’ll happily rephrase it so you can wrap your head around the absolute madness of what I’m getting at.

Playing towards the Dolan in first half

V early yellow cards to Plymouth (Pepple, striker)

Goal - Randle