When : Saturday March 14 2026, 3pm
Where : Madejski Stadium, Reading, RG2 0FL
Capacity : 24,161
Improving visitors from the south west next.
Plymouth are the second of the three relegated sides to travel to the SCL this season and let’s hope it turns out to be better than the dreadful Huddersfield performance we were all exposed to back in August. Hoping the Mansfield let down will give something to rally against.
Like Reading, the third division is very much the usual home for the Pilgrims as they have spent many seasons bouncing around this level too. After their brief sojourn in the Championship they were probably among many people’s favourites to be bobbing around the play off places at least but fortune had other ideas and a poor start to the season saw them in the bottom 4 by the late Autumn. However there wasn’t any panic in the board room and Tom Cleverly, only appointed over the summer, retained his management role and now Plymouth are very much looking up rather than down.
In fact only Lincoln and Cardiff have better away form so, by a long way, this isn’t going to be the same challenge that Reading received at Home Park earlier in the season. Recent results in the last 6 league games have seen the Plymouth army (and it is an army as we know that the away end will be packed out again, as it is every time we meet, particularly as this is one of the more local games for them) stuff Cardiff 5-2 at home and clock up good wins at Blackpool (4-0), Wigan (3-0) and Orient (3-1) so you can see they’re a capable side while also being relatively free flowing on the goals front.
Without a doubt the big threat is going to come from their forward line with Laurent Tolaj (13 goals) and Aribim Pepple (12 goals) finding things relatively comfortable, if not easy, at this level especially when combining with the likes of Owen Oseni, Xavier Amaechi and Caleb Watts so Reading will need to be very well rehearsed and organised defensively to ensure they can keep on top of that little lot.
January saw minimal but shrewd change to the Plymouth squad with Wes Harding arriving on loan from Millwall to help settle the defensive issues, Ronan Curtis arriving permanently from Port Vale to team up again with his former strike partner Laurent Tolaj and Huddersfield midfielder Herbie Kane also joining on loan.
DWilliams is injured again as, presumably, is the backup keeper Stevens, so the team won’t be much different from the shambles in Nottinghamshire, but it needs to be better, much, much better.
Referee
Sebastian Stockbridge
Previously
21 Sep 24 > Bolton Wanderers 5-2 Reading
13 Apr 24 > Barnsley 2-2 Reading
Historically
Surprisingly, given the number of years these two teams have spent stuck in the third tier, this is only the 30th season shared together and so this will be the 60th league game played. Of the previous 29 home games Reading just have the edge with 12 victories to Plymouth’s 10. As you can see from that fact, the Pilgrims have a tendency to do well in Reading, in fact it wasn’t until the 8th league meeting at home that Reading actually managed to beat them for the first time. In the last 5 league games at home Reading have won 2 and drawn 2 with just 1 defeat (but we all know which game that was
).How to follow the game
- Listen to Radio 5 Live and/or a myriad of other radio stations for score flashes
- Ring/text a mate for updates
- Use an RoyalTV subscription
- BBC Radio Berkshire (FM : 104.4, 104.1 or 95.4 depending where you are in the area)
- Or you can always just go and get a ticket
