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That was a 3-0 defeat that left us without a point from the first four games and was probably as bad a performance as we have seen from a Burnley side in many a year. It was another night when we left the ground with the news that Stan had offered to resign.
Reading were expected to be right up there at the top this season but they were interrupted by the shock departure of manager Alan Pardew to West Ham. Even so, and despite the perceived inconsistency, they are still in eighth place just a point behind the play offs. A win against us tonight will take them back into the top six.
We beat them 3-0 on the Turf back in November to end our own poor run of results on a night when Richard Chaplow had probably his best game yet in a Burnley shirt. The Royals followed that with two wins but then suffered another three successive 3-0 defeats. Two of those defeats were at home, one of them incredibly against Franchise.
They have only been beaten once since in six league games and that was a 5-1 hammering at Millmoor against Rotherham.
Since the Turf Moor game Steve Coppell has made another couple of signings. Just two days later he brought in Colchester’s 20-year-old forward Dean Morgan and at the end of 2003 Dave Kitson, a regular goalscorer at Cambridge, cost Reading £150,000.
Neither of them have started a game as yet, both have made two substitute appearances.
To add to that he has added striker Lloyd Owusu in a surprise loan move from Sheffield Wednesday that has already been extended. The former Brentford player has scored once in seven appearances so far.
They have been linked with Glen Little again and there have been suggestions that they have already made the Clarets player an offer for next season. They did try to sign him at the end of last season, as Glen revealed last week, but didn’t offer him enough money.
So Glen stayed at Burnley in much the same way as Driss Diallo elected to move to Ipswich.
It will be a first return to the Madejski for Glen after he played a total of seven appearances for them and should he get on the field it will be the same for Luke Chadwick who was also there last season and made 17 appearances.
Reading won at Gillingham on Saturday with a name familiar to Burnley fans, that of Shaun Goater, scoring the only goal of the game. The Goat thankfully missed the Turf Moor encounter, there cannot be many visiting players who have scored two hat tricks on our ground.
He does seem to have made a habit of scoring goals against us over the years so it is about time that changed.
The game also featured a penalty save from Marcus Hahnemann and manager Coppell was impressed at his sides resilience. It appears they went a goal up and then made sure that Gillingham weren’t going to get back into it in a defensive approach.
They lined up:
Marcus Hahneman, Graeme Murty, Ivar Ingarmarsen, Ricky Newman, Nicky Shorey, Andy Hughes, Steve Sidwell, James Harper, John Salako (Scott Murray 89), Shaun Goater (Dave Kitson 77), Lloyd Owusu. Subs: Bas Savage, Dean Morgan, Jamie Young.
The Clarets will be looking for a first win at Reading since a 1981 3-1 success with two goals from Steve Taylor and one from Micky Phelan.
Click HERE to see all Reading’s results this season.
Past Results in the last 20 years
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
a | |||||
1984/85 | 3 | a | 1-5 | 4,024 | Biggins |
h | 0-2 | 3,955 | |||
1992/93 | 2 | h | 1-1 | 8,382 | Harper |
a | 0-1 | 6,398 | |||
1993/94 | 2 | a | 1-2 | 5,855 | Eyres(pen) |
h | 0-1 | 11,650 | |||
1994/95 | 1 | a | 0-0 | 8,150 | |
h | 1-2 | 9,841 | Parkinson | ||
1998/99 | 2 | a | 1-1 | 10,080 | Payton |
h | 1-1 | 9,366 | Reid | ||
1999/2000 | 2 | a | 0-0 | 6,149 | |
h | 3-0 | 14,436 | Davis Payton Wright | ||
2002/03 | 1 | a | 0-3 | 12,009 | |
h | 2-5 | 14,420 | I Moore West | ||
2003/04 | 1 | h | 3-0 | 9,473 | Blake Chaplow Chadwick |
Click HERE
to see all our results against Reading.