Steve Coppell’s men came up from the Championship and with limited funds and the hardest set of league games in the clubs history ahead many people had them on their relegation short-lists. But in Coppell they have a quality manager, who moves under the radar with his softly softly approach and has turned what looked a hard season ahead into a real chance of making the UEFA Cup.
So far they are up to sixth in the league after a storming run of results that’s seen them unbeaten in five with four wins and a draw. In those games they have also found the net a massive 15 times (ave 3 per game) so a Villa clean sheet looks unlikely.
Reading have done well to keep most of his squad together after various bigger clubs showing plenty of interest in players like Kevin Doyle, Steve Sidwell and Leroy Lita, and now that the transfer window has passed he can relax and really push for Europe.
England U21 striker Lita is the man of the moment after stepping up to the plate since Doyle has been on the sidelines and with eight goals in his their last 9 games, plus an International goal in midweek at 11/2 to score first and 11/8 at anytime he looks a must when looking into the scoring markets.
At home Reading are P13 W 8 D1 L4, but with two of those four home defeats being at the hands of Chelsea and Arsenal Steve Coppell has really made his team a hard outfit to beat at the Madejski Stadium.
Their opponents here Aston Villa are having an in and out season and after a great start everyone got carried away with Martin O’Neill but after inheriting a team that needed a revamp they soon became a very hard team to predict and are now down to thirteenth.
A lot of people have said that Martin O’Neill was just trying to make it to the transfer window to bring in some of his own choice of players, and after signing Ashley Young and John Carew in the last few weeks the team played well despite losing at Newcastle and then beat West Ham at home last week.
However, for me I think we need to see a bit more of them to start backing them with confidence again, and after all their away form still makes pretty poor reading – P13 W1 D7 L5.
Based on this Reading look the safest betting option. So at around 23/20 at home, against a team with only one win on their travels, this looks cracking value to me. At a better price the 3/1 on their being 4+ goals in the game also stood out with Reading scoring for fun at present. Reading have also been involved in five 3-2 games in their last 13 (Three in their favour),so the 28/1 on offer for a repeat scoreline to the home side is also worth backing for a bit of fun.
Recommended bets
3pts - Reading to win
2pts - Lita to score
1pt – 4+ goals
½ pt – 3-2 Reading
• All prices correct at time of writing.
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