Royals start rush of games

I'm never so sure whether it's good to have a break or not after a win. Yes, you go into it full of confidence but surely when you get on a run of wins, and we'd just won three out of four, you want to get back onto the pitch again as soon as possible.

Andre Amougou - set to face his old club

It seems ages since the Millwall game. It's only been two weeks but with not even a reserve game to fill the space it's as if the club has been closed down for the period.

Now, finally we are ready to get underway again and it's Reading. Mention Reading to any Burnley supporter and the words 'play off' will almost certainly get a mention. Those two games at the end of the 2008/09 season when we booked our place at Wembley on the way to the Premier League.

Beating Reading is something that's never come that easy to Burnley. If you look back in history we won our first ever encounter 8-1 in September 1930 but, having lost the away game, we didn't play them again in a league game for another fifty years.

Incredibly from 1980 onwards we've played 28 league games against Reading and won only five of them. We won at Elm Park in the 1980/81 season and have since won home games in 1981/82, 1999/2000, 2003/04 and 2008/09 with the first three of those home wins all 3-0.

You can even add a couple of FA Cup wins in the last five years to that, both at the Madejski in the third rounds of 2006/07 and 2010/11.

Tomorrow we go into the game with little to separate the two sides. We're one place above them courtesy of a better goal difference. Ours is plus one and theirs zero. We also have the advantage of having played one game less.

We do go into the game with that confidence from the last few games. Having come home from Peterborough with a disappointing 2-1 defeat, we've followed it up with two wins and a draw at home and then that win at Millwall when we finally got the monkey off our back by keeping a clean sheet for the first time in 23 games.

We've started to find the net regularly enough and our two front men, Jay Rodriguez and Charlie Austin, now have fifteen league and cup goals between us. I suspect it's a few years since we had a pair with so many goals at this stage in the season.

We've perhaps also got players in our side with a point to prove. Those involved last season will want to erase the memory of that 4-0 defeat whilst two of our newer recruits, Austin and Marvin Bartley, both started their careers with Reading.

There are no new injuries reported, although Brian Jensen and Michael Duff remain out of the reckoning alongside long term injury victims Martin Paterson and Danny Ings. David Edgar has returned from his latest trip home on international duty unscathed and I would think it is very likely that Eddie Howe will go with the team that started in that win at Millwall.

If that's the case we can expect Burnley to line up: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Andre Amougou, David Edgar, Brian Easton, Ross Wallace, Marvin Bartley, Chris McCann, Junior Stanislas, Charlie Austin, Jay Rodriguez. Subs from: Jon Stewart, Ben Mee, Dean Marney, Keith Treacy, Alex MacDonald, Zavon Hines.

Our Opponents - Reading

The Burnley squad has undergone some changes since the end of last season and the same can be said for Reading.

Just six months ago they reached the final of the Championship play offs and went down 4-2 to Swansea City despite fighting back from three goals down to 3-2 in a dramatic second half.

The notable departures are those of central defender Matt Mills and striker Shane Long. Mills made the move to join Sven Goran Eriksson's money fuelled revolution at Leicester whilst Long is back in the Premier League playing for West Brom.

Manager Brian McDermott has brought new players in to fill the gaps, including the capture of Mills' brother Joseph from Southampton and Kaspars Gorkss who arrived from QPR whilst Rotherham's Adam Le Fondre has joined the battle for places up front.

Reading suffered a shocking run of four successive league defeats earlier in the season, a run that also saw them score just one goal, and that a Hal Robson-Kanu penalty against Barnsley.

They've recovered from that with two wins and two draws from their last four games and scored three goals in their last away game in an incredible game at Bristol City. With 18 minutes remaining they were 2-0 down but scored through Jobi McAnuff, Le Fondre and Mathieu Manset to win it.

Influential winger Jimmy Kebe came off injured in the first of those four games. He's missed the last three but is back in the reckoning tomorrow. It's likely that he'll be on the bench with McDermott saying: "He's not trained too much for the last three weeks so it's a tall order to push him straight back in."

The other doubt is Alex McCarthy, with the manager saying: "He has a little nock so we'll have a look at that. Other than that, we're fine."

Last time out they drew 0-0 at home against Middlesbrough and the team tomorrow could be that which started then. if so, they will line up: Adam Federici, Shaun Cummings, Joseph Mills, Kaspars Gorkss, Alex Pearce, Mikele Leigertwood, Jay Tabb, Jobi McAnuff, Hal Robson-Kanu, Simon Church, Adam Le Fondre. Subs from: Alex McCarthy, Ian Harte, Jem Karacan, Mathieu Manset, Simon Church, Jimmy Kebe.

Last Time They Were Here

In last season's home game against Reading, Burnley suffered their biggest defeat outside the Premier League since the 7-2 loss to Sheffield Wednesday in April 2003.

Leon Cort - sent off in his last Burnley game

Reading took the points with a 4-0 win and the result, which flattered the visitors somewhat, was something of a shock given that Burnley had won six and drawn one of the seven home games in the season to date.

It was a game for which two people will be remembered, simply because of their poor performances. One was central defender Leon Cort, who has not played for Burnley since, and the other was the most incompetent of referees Nigel Miller.

The two combined with just seven minutes gone. No one could complain when Miller pulled up Cort for a foul on Shane Long and no one could complain when the yellow card came out. But Miller pointed to the penalty spot for a foul that was so clearly outside the box and from that Long gave Reading the lead and we never really recovered.

There is no doubt that we should have been given the opportunity to draw level in similar circumstances but incredibly Miller missed the foul on Chris Iwelumo by Matt Mills and at half time we trailed 1-0.

Cort had committed just the one foul on the first half. It had cost us a goal and so did his next foul. The free kick was played into our box, Danny Fox headed it straight into the path of Jobi McAnuff who made it 2-0. He then went on a goal celebration that should have led to a yellow card, and given that he was carded for a foul a couple of minutes later they should have been down to ten men.

It was Burnley, however, who went down to ten and this was Cort's third foul of the afternoon. Just a minute after McAnuff should have been walking, Cort did, and there could be no complaints from him or Burnley in any way.

We were rightly down to ten men with just over twenty minutes to go. Five minutes later we brought on Steven Thompson and Martin Paterson for the disappointing pair of Iwelumo and Jay Rodriguez and gave it a go.

Paterson got through but was wrongly flagged offside, Thompson was brought down in the box and got nothing, and then two freak goals in the last five minutes gave the game the final scoreline. A ball into the box deflected off Andre Bikey straight to Michail Antonio to score number three and then Simon Church's cross flew into the top corner.

We were awful, it had been the worst performance of the season, no doubt about that, but the scoreline was a nonsense. Reading were better than us, and they deserved to win the game, but it was never a 4-0 game, not by some distance.

The teams were;

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Tyrone Mears, Leon Cort, Andre Bikey, Danny Fox, Jack Cork, Wade Elliott, Dean Marney (Ross Wallace 65), Chris Eagles, Chris Iwelumo (Martin Paterson 75), Jay Rodriguez (Steven Thompson 74). Subs not used: Lee Grant, Michael Duff, Brian Easton, Graham Alexander.

Reading: Adam Federici, Andy Griffin, Zurab Khizanishvili, Matt Mills, Ian Harte, Jem Karacan (Simon Church 75), Brian Howard, Jobi McAnuff, Hal Robson-Kanu, Jay Tabb (Michail Antonio 82), Shane Long. Subs not used: Alex McCarthy, Shaun Cummings, Alex Pearce, Noel Hunt..

Previous Games against Reading

Click HERE to see all previous results against Reading