Obviously, at the moment we are fifth in Division 2 with a game in hand, and some inferior teams have got ahead of us thanks to our two defeats in November. There's been quite a few mentions in recent weeks of the fact that we have already played away games at all of our major rivals this season (apart from Stoke), meaning that they all have yet to visit Madejski Stadium. The theory goes that we're good at home, and so can expect to take points off of these teams in the remainder of the season.
Another way of looking at that is of course to say that we've played all the weaker teams at home, and have only got points from those games because our opponents were not the best in the division. I don't go along with this at all - if you look at our home games so far, we've had five big wins, three less comfortable wins, a draw and a defeat. The three "less comfortable" wins (2-0, 2-0 and 4-3) were all against local rivals (Swindon, Wycombe and Oxford) who raised their game for a derby match. The draw was against Stoke at the start of the season before we had got properly going, so that the only real black spot was the recent defeat to Colchester. Yes, it is true that we have played weaker sides at home, but it is equally true that we have destroyed nearly all of them.
Away from home, we have played against the other teams in the top six - Walsall, Rotherham, Millwall, Wigan and Bristol City. We have only got four points from those games, which is obviously not really good enough. We've also played two other teams in the top ten - Northampton and Peterborough - and lost both of those. Of course, it is also possible to argue that the only reason our away form has been poor is that we've played all the better teams, and in fact the only game we have played away to a team in the bottom ten was the win at Port Vale.
All in all, we clearly have a very topsy-turvy season where we've initially played away games against the better sides and home games against the worse sides. This will obviously even itself out over the coming months.
But what about the other teams at the top of the table - are they in the same boat? Well, the answer is not at all - in fact just the opposite! For what follows, I have used the current top ten sides as my base (i.e. Walsall, Rotherham, Millwall, Wigan, Reading, Bristol City, Stoke, Wycombe, Northampton and Peterborough) although I've only analysed the fixtures for the top seven. Remember that Reading have already played away to seven of these sides including all of the other teams in the top six. I realise that there is no guarantee that the current top ten will end the season as the ten best teams in the division, but without a crystal ball I had to start somewhere!
Let's start with Millwall, who most people expect to be our biggest threat come May. So far this season, they've only played away to four of the other top ten sides - they lost at Stoke, Wigan and Rotherham, whilst winning at Peterborough. They've played some of the other top sides at home, but the only team they managed to beat were us back on opening day when injuries forced us to put out a reserve side. Millwall have subsequently lost at home to Wycombe and Northampton, whilst drawing against Bristol City. And they have yet to play Walsall at all, so that's only seven points from their eight games against other top sides, despite half of those games being at home! In the rest of the season, they have a lot of tricky away games to come, with no good form against top sides demonstrated so far.
Current temporary leaders Walsall are in an even worse position. The only sides in the top ten that they've played away are Rotherham (where they won on opening day) and Wycombe (where they lost). They have an excellent home record, having beaten four of the top ten at home (Wigan, Stoke, Reading and Northampton), whilst drawing against Bristol City and Peterborough. This Saturday (16th December) they visit Millwall, incidentally.
Moving on to Rotherham, it's a similar story. They've only played three of the top ten away from home, and have yet to visit any of the other teams in the top five. However, they did get seven points from those three games, winning at Bristol City and Northampton, whilst drawing at Stoke. At home against top sides, they have lost to Walsall and Reading, drawn with Wigan, and beat Wycombe, Peterborough and Millwall.
Wigan are in exactly the same position! They've only played three games away to sides currently in the top ten - they lost at Walsall, and drew at Rotherham and Bristol City. Their home form is even better than Walsall's, Reading being the only visitors this season to come away with a point, but the only other top ten teams they have played at home are Peterborough, Northampton and Millwall. They've yet to play Wycombe or Stoke anywhere, but those are their next two League games.
In other words, every one of the four teams ahead of Reading in the table has played a disproportionately low number of away games against top teams. And apart from Rotherham, they all have bad away records in the few games that they have played (and Rotherham's games have not been against any of the other teams in the top five).
I know it's getting a bit like a tape loop, but for Bristol City it's exactly the same. They've played three games away to other top ten sides, but are unbeaten with draws at Millwall and Walsall, and a win at Wycombe. At home they've lost to Stoke and Rotherham, drawn with Wigan, and beaten Reading and Peterborough. However, Bristol City have had a strange season with an awful start, which is when those two defeats occurred. They've yet to play Northampton at all.
When it comes to Stoke, you know what's coming! They've only played four games against the other top ten sides, with a defeat at Walsall, draws at Reading and Northampton and an early season win at Bristol City. At home, they've beaten Peterborough and Millwall, whilst drawing with Wycombe and Rotherham.
Summary:
| Team | Games away to other top ten sides | Games at home against other top ten sides |
| Walsall | 2 (3 points) |
6 (14 points) |
| Rotherham | 3 (7 points) | 6 (10 points) |
| Millwall | 4 (3 points) | 4 (4 points) |
| Wigan | 3 (2 points) | 4 (10 points) |
| Reading | 7 (4 points) | 2 (4 points) |
| Bristol City | 3 (5 points) | 5 (7 points) |
| Stoke | 4 (5 points) | 4 (8 points) |
It's clear that none of the other contending teams can be happy about the remaining fixtures. They've all got lots of difficult away trips to come, whilst we have difficult home games. Obviously we have to win those matches, but I know which set of remaining fixtures I'd rather have.
One further point - you might think that I deliberately chose to look at games aginst the top ten sides because it suited my argument. If I had instead chosen just to look against games played against the top eight or top six, the conclusions would be the same except that it would show Reading in an even better light. It would also have avoided making Rotherham look to be in as good a position as the above table suggests.
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