Azeez starts: The predicted Reading FC XI to face Blackpool tonight | OneFootball

Championship outfit Reading will be desperate to continue their great vein of form tonight against recently-promoted side Blackpool at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.

Sitting in seventh before yesterday’s round of second-tier fixtures, they will hope to claim another three points tonight in their quest to mitigate the effects of a likely points deduction and achieve a respectable top-half finish after a difficult summer.

Not only did they lose the talented Omar Richards and Michael Olise to Bayern Munich and Crystal Palace, but they were also restricted on the incoming business they could conduct after breaking the EFL’s profit and sustainability rules, leaving them with a considerable lack of squad depth in the early stages of the 2021/22 campaign.

Even with six new arrivals coming in during August, they still had gaping holes in their team from the injury crisis they are still enduring at this present time.

Veljko Paunovic’s men have dealt with this issue admirably though, winning five of their last six Championship games and looking on course to have a solid season after achieving a top-half finish last term.

There were no fresh injury concerns from the weekend, something that will please Royals fans after seeing several academy players make up the numbers on the bench in recent games.

They may not be fighting adversity on Derby County’s scale, but they are dealing with their own issues in a professional nonetheless and that’s something to be commended.

But after an unconvincing 1-0 victory against strugglers Barnsley in which a couple of players struggled, will manager Paunovic opt for an unchanged starting lineup from the weekend?

We have selected our predicted 11 for tonight’s clash against the Seasiders.

After another fantastic performance at the weekend, making vital saves in helping the Royals keep a clean sheet, Luke Southwood starts between the sticks again and is starting to look like their first-choice goalkeeper on a permanent basis to Rafael Cabral’s detriment.

Baba Rahman also takes his place at left-back again after showing flashes of quality, with Andy Yiadom managing to overcome his injury in time to put in a solid performance at the back. He won all his battles and was one contender for man of the match against the Tykes.

But many peoples’ pick for that title was Scott Dann, who was a rock on his first start for the club and is benefitting club captain Liam Moore with his Premier League experience. You can see that with the latter’s performances improving vastly from earlier in the campaign.

Danny Drinkwater is another summer arrival who has barely put his foot wrong since signing on the dotted line at the Select Car Leasing Stadium and will retain his place in the starting lineup throughout the season if he can stay consistent.

Josh Laurent was one man who struggled on Saturday, but he gets a chance to make amends after performing so well as a makeshift centre-back before the international break.

Ovie Ejaria is lacking the consistency in his game to become a Premier League player, but has the ability to change games as he showed at Craven Cottage against Fulham last month and could be the difference again alongside main man John Swift.

Tom Dele-Bashiru continues out on the right and was unlucky to have a goal chalked off for a dubious offside on Saturday afternoon. Despite being more effective in the middle, he doesn’t deserve to be dropped.

The only change for the Berkshire outfit comes up top. Although it would be nice to have Femi Azeez as an impact player, having changed the game for them against the Tykes on Saturday, George Puscas is really struggling and hasn’t done enough to keep his spot in the starting 11.

He takes his place on the bench, with Azeez starting as the lone forward up top.

Predicted substitutes: Rafael, Stickland, Osorio, Rinomhota, Camara, Clarke, Puscas