Lee Clark’s Birmingham City will be looking to bounce back from last week’s crushing defeat to Sheffield Wednesday against a Reading side chasing the playoff places at St Andrew’s today.

Reading

Reading lie in seventh place, one point off the playoffs and a hefty nineteen points better off than Birmingham City. They are unbeaten in four games – three of which have been draws and have won three of their last four away games, scoring three or more goals in each of those wins.

Hal Robson-Kanu may miss out with a hamstring problem while an ankle knock won’t prevent Russian striker Pavel Pogbrenyak from keeping his place on the bench.

Blues

Emyr Huws should have recovered enough from his hip injury last weekend to keep his place along with captain Paul Robinson (concussion). Callum Reilly is also available after an injury but Brian Howard still isn’t in full training yet.

Lee Clark will have to make a decision whether to stick with Tyler Blackett who got yanked off after less than half an hour last weekend or whether to move Paul Robinson to left back and give Aaron Martin a start in central defence along side Will Packwood, who won the Football League young player of the month award for February yesterday. Federico Macheda is pushing for a start up front and Olly Lee could be the man to make way.

I’m tired of saying we need a win and I hate the talk of “ten Champions League finals” I have seen in the newspaper today. Clark says he has tried everything but for me it’s about putting your eleven best players on the pitch in a formation that they know their roles in. If we can start off by doing that – then maybe, just maybe we can get a positive result.

Tags: Emyr Huws, Federico Macheda, Paul Robinson, Reading, Tyler Blackett