Eng. Championship
2011-05-13 - Reading vs Cardiff City
A Sports Betting Pick by ArmchairPunter
Football: England: nPower Championship
Play-Off Semi Final 1st Leg
Friday 13th May 2011 – Kickoff 7.45pm
It's the second of the play-off matches in the Championship as Reading prepare for the visit of Cardiff City in their crucial clash at the Madejski Stadium on Friday night.
Reading
Reading finished their home straight in the Championship season in good form winning seven of their last nine home matches (plus one draw against Watford 1-1 and an unexpected loss against Sheffield United 2-3) which saw The Royals achieve a hard-earned play-off place.
Reading's home league record stands at 12-7-4 43/25, and an interesting home stat about them is that they've failed to score on just 4 occasions out of 23 matches. Striker Shane Long (22 goals, 10 assists) leads the way, along with penalty taker Ian Harte (11 goals) and Noel Hunt (10 goals, 5 assists).
Also in their armoury are their two attacking wingers Jimmy Kebe (9 goals, 7 assists) and Jobi McAnuff (4 goals, 7 assists) who not only create goals but score them too.
Cardiff City
Visitors Cardiff City, and more to the point, manager David Jones appear to have blown their chance of promotion to the Premiership following their stuttering run-in during the last few weeks of the regular season.
This is not the first time that a team led by David Jones seemingly on course for promotion have failed at the last hurdle and bombed out after showing so much promise. His Wolves team suffered this experience a few years ago as I recall and lightning could well strike again for his Cardiff charges.
Just one win in their last four meant that rivals Norwich City who were simply unstoppable, stole a march on them and pipped them into the automatic promotion place behind leaders QPR.
The Bluebirds away record stands at 11-4-8 35/29 and were only just behind Watford (38 goals) and Norwich City (36 goals) in the away goalscoring stakes. Indeed, they too have failed to score just 4 times out of their 23 away matches, and have never failed to score when playing Reading away from home in all previous nine encounters.
They too possess a fair attacking array of dangerous players like leading scorer Jay Bothroyd (18 goals, 8 assists), Peter Whittingham (11 goals, 10 assists), Craig Bellamy (11 goals, 10 assists), Michael Chopra (9 goals) and Chris Burke with 5 goals and 9 assists.
The Betting Verdict :
I think this match will be a more open, attacking-based match than the Forest – Swansea encounter as Reading always like to attack at home, along with Cardiff's various attacking outlets at their disposal.
Perhaps a 1-1 draw, but I'm confident that both teams will score in this one.
The Pick :
Reading 1-1 Cardiff City
