Championship promotion hopefuls Reading will be keen to return to winning ways when they host Millwall on Saturday afternoon.

The Royals were beaten 3-1 by Brentford on Wednesday night, falling to fifth in the process, while the Lions are firmly in midtable.

Match preview

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Lucas Joao's penalty gave Reading a first-half lead against their promotion rivals at the Madejski Stadium, but they eventually fell to their first league defeat of 2021.

The loss brought to an end a run of three successive home wins and their seven game unbeaten run in the Championship.

After the game, Veljko Paunovic did not rule the Royals out of getting into the automatic promotion spots, but they are now seven points behind the top two. The club are safely in the playoff positions, though, sitting eight points clear of Middlesbrough in seventh.

Only Brentford (55) and Bournemouth (43) have scored more goals than Reading (41) in the division, but Paunovic's side have also conceded the third-most goals in the top half (32).

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Only Norwich City, Watford and Swansea City have conceded fewer than Millwall's tight defence, but it was the Lions' attacking quality on show in their 4-1 triumph over Sheffield Wednesday last weekend.

Strikes from Kenneth Zohore, Scott Malone, Ben Thompson and Mahlon Romeo secured the club's biggest win of the campaign so far and lifted them to 14th.

The victory was only Gary Rowett's side's second in nine matches, but they have also only lost twice in that run; that reflects the fact that Millwall have had the most draws in the Championship this season (14), including the reverse fixture against Reading in November that ended 1-1. However, the Royals are the only side in the division yet to see a home game end level in 2020-21.

Millwall have actually been better away from home than at the Den this season, and only six teams in the Championship have picked up more points on the road.

Reading Championship form: WWDWDL
Reading form (all competitions): LWDWDL

Millwall Championship form: LWDDDW
Millwall form (all competitions): WLDDDW

Team News

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Ryan Leonard was forced off with an ankle injury on the hour mark in Millwall's win over Wednesday and is now expected to be out for two months.

Fellow midfielder Maikel Kieftenbeld is a doubt after also coming off against the Owls, meaning there could be starts for Thompson and teenager Billy Mitchell, who has not played at all this season due to a hamstring injury.

Jed Wallace sat out last weekend's game due to a tight hamstring but is expected to return to the side at the Madejski Stadium.

Yakou Meite and John Swift missed Reading's defeat to Brentford with reoccurring injuries and are expected to be unavailable on Saturday too.

One change Paunovic may make is to bring Tom Holmes back in at right-back for Andy Yiadom as the Ghanaian international played 90 minutes on Wednesday night for the first time after a two-month long injury.

Sone Aluko could come into Reading's frontline, but Paunovic's options are limited due to the Royals' small squad and injury problems.

Reading possible starting lineup:
Rafael; Holmes, Morrison, McIntyre, Richards; Rinomhota, Laurent; Olise, Semedo, Ejaria; Joao

Millwall possible starting lineup:
Bialkowski; Evans, Hutchinson, Cooper; Romeo, Woods, Thompson, Mitchell, Malone; Wallace, Zohore

We say: Reading 1-0 Millwall

Reading did not play badly against Brentford so should not be too disheartened by the defeat; they will certainly be favourites against Millwall but will by no means dominate the Lions, who are hard to break down.

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