Reading get regal price to gain immediate Premier League return

With Burnley joining champions Leicester in the Premier League next season the race is on to see which teams can finish in the remaining two play-off positions still available behind Derby and QPR, already assured of their spots in the end-of-season promotion lottery.

Realistically, the teams still in with a shout of claiming either fifth or sixth place in the Championship end with 10th-place Blackburn, though Rovers’ price of 66/1 to be promoted shows this is highly unlikely.

Understandably, Derby and QPR, at 12/5 and 5/2 respectively, head the betting for promotion, followed by Wigan at 5/2 – who require just two more points from their last two games to be assured of a play-off berth – while sixth-place Reading are back at 6/1.

However, with games against a Doncaster side who have only picked up one point from the last 15 available and a home fixture against a Burnley side already dreaming of top-flight football to finish, Reading are in a strong position to make the grade.

And given the Royals are a club who have secured two Premier League promotions in the last seven seasons, this price is a very attractive one indeed, especially with Nigel Adkins at the helm.

Adkins also secured top-flight promotion with former club Southampton and can draw on the experience of winning the League One play-offs when in charge of Scunthorpe.

Reading may have come a cropper in the play-offs twice in the same space of time, but that chastening ordeal can also be seen as something that the players affected can learn from.

Those left over from the 2010/11 campaign when they were beaten 4-2 in the final at Wembley by Swansea know what to expect, but crucially the club have retained many of the players used in the Premier League last season.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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