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After Monday night heroics, Reading were brought back to earth with a thud this afternoon at the Valley. Pavel Pogrebnyak had opened the scoring for the visitors on 40 minutes, and things looked good with a strong performance on the road. But it was a capitulation in the second half that could have been much worse were it not for Adam Federici in the Reading goal. In the end, it finished 3-1 to Charlton. Yoni Buyens grabbed a brace for the Addicks, with former Royal Simon Church adding a third in the 80th minute. Danny Williams had a particularly bad afternoon, getting a second yellow card in the 84th minute. The Big Russian also completed his brace in the 90th minute in what was ultimately little more than a consolation.
Bit of a contrast for Williams - scored the winner for #readingfc in the same fixture last season. Sent off today. #cafc
— Jacob South Klein (@JacobSouthKlein) March 21, 2015
That result leaves the Royals in 19th place, 9 points off the bottom three as Wigan drew 1-1 at home to Bolton Wanderers. It goes to show how patchy league form has been this season, but those are consecutive defeats away from home that Reading have been comfortably beaten in. And, unlike Watford, team selection can't have been a factor. Today, Steve Clarke put out one of his strongest sides - with just the one change from Bradford. Plus, it's been 5 days since that match, so we don't have the excuse of fatigue.
Keep your eyes peeled for our full match report and player ratings, which will be on the site shortly.