Reading v Nottingham Forest
Saturday December 6, 12:30
Sky Sports
Reading held at Wednesday
Reading moved up to fourth in the Championship as the Royals came from behind to earn a point against 10-man Sheffield Wednesday in midweek. Veljko Paunovic‘s troops conceded the opener inside the opening quarter but Liam Shaw was sent off for a reckless challenge on Omar Richards on the half-hour mark, allowing the Berkshire boys to take control of proceedings.
Lucas Joao headed home Ovie Ejaria‘s free-kick at the far post against his former club to level before the break and Michael Olise came close to giving Reading all three points in the second half, but his powerful shot went narrowly over the bar. Ejaria also almost snatched the points in the closing stages with a long-range strike that required a last-ditch save.
Paunovic made just one change to his starting XI as Alfa Semedo came in to the Royals’ starting line-up, with Yakou Meite dropping out of the squad altogether. The visitors won the shot count 20-3 and post-match the Serbian said, “I am disappointed that we didn’t get the result because we were the team who wanted to get most out of this game.”
Forest fail to fire
Nottingham Forest brought an end to a three-match losing streak as they drew 0-0 against high-flying Watford at the City Ground on Wednesday night. Chris Hughton‘s side will no doubt feel they deserved top honours, however, having created the better chances and producing a sterling defensive effort that largely kept the promotion-chasing Hornets at bay.
A first half of very few opportunities saw the Reds looking solid at the back, with the return of Joe Worrall from injury. The visitors barely had a sniff at goal as Forest did a good job of keeping them at arm’s length and Hughton’s men also enjoyed a collection of promising moments going forward; the final ball too often letting the hosts down at times.
Lyle Taylor and Joe Lolley had their moments after the interval before tired legs began to show in the closing stages. Speaking post-match, head coach Hughton said: “There were some real plusses. I still thought, overall, it was a good enough performance to get more from. We’ve got to be making more chances, that would be the only negative.”
Reading and Nottingham Forest played out two 1-1 draws in the disrupted 2019/20 campaign and the duo can’t be separated over their past 22 tussles. The pair have each returned a W7-D8-L7 record in head-to-heads, although the Royals boast a W5-D4-L1 Madjeski Stadium return when welcoming the Reds, including W4-D1-L0 of late.
After making a record-breaking start to the season (W7-D1-L0), Reading’s 2.1411/10 progress stalled as the Royals took a solitary point from a possible five (W0-D1-L4). Nevertheless, Veljko Paunovic’s outfit have steadied the ship in recent weeks and come into this contest unbeaten in three (W1-D2-L0). The hosts have pocketed five wins from seven home outings.
Nottingham Forest (3.002/1)were pointless after four rounds of action but have produced a series of competitive displays under Chris Hughton (W3-D4-L4). Even so, the Reds have relished home comforts and tended to toil when taking to the road, earning only four points from a possible 21 on their travels (W1-D1-L5), and have failed to score in their past four.
Reading’s encounters have tended to be fun affairs. The Royals’ matches are featuring 2.87 goals per-game – second only to Blackburn 3.07 – and 8/15 (53%) of those have broken the Over 2.5 Goals barrier. The Berkshire boys have scored in all bar three league clashes and delivered Both Teams To Score profit in six of eight showdowns since late October.
In contrast, Nottingham Forest have been far from regular in the Over 2.5 Goals (2.42) market with only two of their 15 fixtures featuring three goals or more. The Reds have fired blanks in five of their past seven games and managed only two strikes in almost 11 hours of action on the road. Three of seven away days concluded with a maximum of one goal.
With that in mind, I’m going to delve into the Same Game Multi and combine three angles of attack: Reading Double Chance, Reading to score Over 0.5 Goals and Under 3.5 Goals in the game for a 1.9520/21 play. It’s proven a profitable formula in 21 of the duos combined 30 Championship clashes this term.
Source: Betfair UK English Championship
