What a difference three months makes. Before the corresponding home fixture at the start of November we were all hoping for our first win of the season but secretly thinking that Reading would tonk us.
Well that first win duly arrived and for a few brief moments some of us actually believed that Dave Jones was the man to take us forward.
Now, with Jones firmly in the past and sitting on a ten game unbeaten run under Stuart Gray, Wednesday head to the Madejski looking to widen the gap between them and the bottom three even further.
Looking at the league positions of the two sides it’s difficult to believe that this is a game between the two of the league’s most in form sides. Wednesday sit just above the drop zone, nervously looking over their shoulders at the likes of Yeovil and Barnsley whilst Reading sit in sixth, with an eye on a play-off place or even automatic promotion.
But it is. We know what Gray has achieved and Reading have four wins from their last five games. In their last two home games they have managed to score twelve goals and have only conceded five in their last six games. They will also be hoping to name an unchanged side if Akpan comes through a fitness test.
It’s never easy, is it?
Owls News
One of the things that Stuart Gray will not be able to do is to name an unchanged side. Onyewu has now joined the majority of our defenders in the treatment room leaving us with the terrifying prospect of Miguel Llera facing the combined threat of Le Fondre and Pobgrebnyak.
JJ will not be available for the next four games as a result of his red card last Saturday and neither will Giles Coke as result of his the other Tuesday whilst Buxton, Gardner, Reda, Taylor, and Zayatte remain out injured.
Good news though!!! Michail Antonio is now “fit” and will presumably be itching for another run out against his former club.
Gray may be tempted to go with his heart and play him from the off but it would be wisest to give him a place on the bench to avoid a repetition of last time
Possible Owls Line-up
Kirkland, Palmer, Llera, Loovens, Mattock, Maghoma, Semedo, Lee, Maguire, Nuhiu, Afobe.
Subs:
Martinez, Helan, McPhail, Corry, McCabe, Antonio, Lavery.
Reading FC
Reading are another club who have had a lot of money thrown at them and achieved success.
But unlike the likes of Blackburn and Bolton it’s hard to dislike them. Even though they have handed us out some heavy defeats over the years.
They began life on Christmas Day 1871, turned professional in 1895 and gained admittance to the Football League in 1920.
From that point up to 1991 not much happened apart from the odd cup run and a promotion to the Second Division under former Wednesday defender Ian Branfoot in 1986.
Things began to change in 1990 when John Madejski bought the club and saved it from bankruptcy.
In 1983 Robert Maxwell had acquired a 19% holding in the club and proposed to merge them with his own club Oxford United. The new club was to be called Thames Valley Royals.
Not surprisingly Reading fans objected to this and sit-ins occurred on the pitch. Maxwell dropped the idea but still retained his shares. Madejski was interested and I’ll let him tell the rest of the story:
“When Robert Maxwell was alive I offered him £5 per share. When he fell off his boat I got them for 10p. Funny old life, isn’t it?”
With the shares secured Madejski became Chairman of the club and set about using his considerable wealth to put things right at the club, both financially and on the pitch.
His first act was to appoint Mark McGhee as manager in 1991 and by 1994 he had secured the Second Division Championship and promotion to the second tier. Things seemed to be getting better and the next season, under Jimmy Quinn, they were denied promotion to the Premier League when the slimmed down from 22 to 20 clubs.
The next season they missed out again when they lost to Bolton in the play-off final and then a mini slump set in until 1998 and Reading were once again in the third tier.
1998 saw Reading move from their Elm Park ground to a new stadium named after their benefactor. It also saw the appointment of Alan Pardew as manager.
After some hard work Pardew got them back to the second tier in 2003 and narrowly missed out on a successive promotion the following season. Pardew moved to West Ham after that and was replaced by Steve Coppell.
Coppell led Reading to the Premier League in 2006 when his team won the Championship with a record number of points. Defying the odds they finished eighth in their first season and qualified for the Intertoto Cup.
But the odds caught up with them and they were relegated the next season. Life back in the Championship was far from mundane for Reading. They featured in the play-offs in 08/09 and 10/11 before securing automatic promotion in 2012.
Their return to the Premier League was brief and they were relegated at the end of last season.
What Reading have achieved has been done without splashing large amounts of money on players. They have invested in their academy and developed players.
With the current state of the game this is something that you have to admire, however partisan you may be.
The Gaffer
Nigel Adkins
It’s often said that former goalkeepers do not make good managers. Adkins is the exception that proves the rule.
He began his professional career as a trainee a Liverpool and ended it at Bangor City, via Tranmere and Wigan.
He began his managerial career at Bangor in 1993 and in 1996 he left to become the physio at Brain Laws’s Sc**thorpe United. When Laws left to help relegate Wednesday Adkins was appointed caretaker manager and, as permanent manager, led them to the Championship in 2007.
His success attracted attention and he became Southampton manager in September 2010. His first win came in a 1-0 victory at Hillsborough, no surprise there as he seems to like playing us.
In his first season at Southampton he guided them into the Championship and topped that the next season by winning promotion to the Premier League. His first game in the Prem was 18th August 2012 and by January 2013 he had been sacked and replaced Mauricio Pochettino.
It was an acrimonious parting and Adkins was very much the injured party. He is currently suing the club for breach of contract.
His return to management came in March the same year when Brian McDermott left Reading to slum it at L**ds and Adkins replaced him. However it was too late for him to save them from relegation.
So far this season he has developed a side that is scoring freely and look a good bet for at least a play-off place.
The Squad
ALF
Le Fondre is a striker who started his career at Stockport County and impressed from the off.
In order to develop his career he was loaned to Rochdale in 2007 and they eventually signed him in the same year. He became Rochdale’s leading goalscorer and at the same time attracted the attention of one of footballs big boys.
Rotherham United signed him in August 2009 and he began to bang goals in left, right and centre. In 96 games for Toytown he amassed 54 league goals and became the darling of the Don Valley knuckle draggers.
All good things must come to an end. His goal scoring antics had attracted the attention of proper football clubs and offers poured in from the likes of Leicester, Derby and Huddersfield.
His departure was inevitable and in August 2011 he joined Reading for a fee of around £350,000. This proved a fortunate move as promotion that season would see him star in the Premier League.
Many thought that he would fail in the top flight but he proved them wrong by scoring 12 goals. Despite this he finds himself back in the Championship and has so far netted thirteen times this season.
Pavel Pograbnyek
They start them young in Russia and Pograbnyek signed for Spartak Moscow in 1989 at the tender age of six. By 2001 he’d finished his homework and was selected for the first team squad.
However, goals were not flowing freely and he was farmed out on loan to famous sides such as Balitika Kaliningrad, Khimki and Shinnik Yaroslavl.
His real breakthrough came when he signed for Tom Tomsk (obviously sponsored by a Russian sat-nav manufacturer). During his one season with them him scored 13 goals in 26 games and earned himself a big money move to Zenit St Petersburg.
Again he managed 13 goals in the 2007 season, but this time it helped his club win the Russian league title and the Russian Super Cup. The following season he missed the UEFA Cup Final against Rangers due to suspension.
In August 2009 he followed in the footsteps of his great grandfather and invaded Germany, signing for VfB Stuttgart. In his three seasons with them he failed to live up to his goal scoring reputation with just 15 goals and they released him.
Next stop was London and he signed a deal with Fulham in January 2012 until the end of the season. He scored on his debut, again in the next game and in his third game, against Wolves, he went two better and scored a hat trick. This made him the fastest player in Premier League history to reach five goals (I’m amazed that there are people out there with enough time on their hands to compile stats like that).
He only managed one more goal for Fulham before being released at the end of the season after failing to reach new contract terms.
He was snapped up by Brian McDermott and turned down several offers to move after Reading’s relegation. So far this season he has scored eight in all competitions and is a potent striker alongside ALF.
Possible Reading Line-up
McCarthyi, Gunter, Obita, Williams, Pearce, Gorkss, McCleary, Akpan, Pogrebnyak, McAnuff, Le Fondre.
Subs:
Federici, Drenthe, Kelly, Robson-Kanu, Blackman, Taylor, Hector
Head-to-Head
So far the two sides have met only 13 times and the record is:
Owls wins 5
Royals wins 6
Draws 2
At The Madejski the record isn’t pretty:
Owls wins 2
Royals wins 4
Draws 0
Past Encounters
Our first two games at Reading were pretty good, a 1-0 victory and a 2-0 victory. The rest, especially the last two visits, give me nightmares, so let’s not go there.
Final Thoughts
This is a game between the two top form teams in the Championship and it should result in goals. Before Christmas I have said that those goals would all be scored by Reading but with the new confidence running through the Wednesday team anything could happen.
This one could go either way and Reading won’t be fooled by our league position
Prediction
Reading 1 – 2 Sheffield Wednesday