Three long away trips in the space of seven days – after kicking off that stint with a point at West Bromwich Albion, manager José Gomes hopes that his side can pick up more points when they visit Huddersfield Town on Saturday.
With a visit to Plymouth to follow the week after, it represents a busy time for the Royals – over 1,000 miles will be travelled within the space of a week with the aims of progressing up the league table and in cup competition too.
“We’ll recover – we train Thursday morning, and then on Friday we train and travel again up to Huddersfield,” Gomes said.
“This is the schedule – recover, prepare, pick up our luggage and travel again.
“We have a lot of away games, and not so many at home. It is not a usual situation, but this is what we have and we must be prepared for all of this.
“Now, I will start watching videos of Huddersfield – our analysts have already prepared the information. I’ll try to understand how they will play against us. On the bus back from West Brom, I’ll start studying them.”
It will be the first time that the Royals have met the Terriers since their date at Wembley in 2017 – but those bitter memories will hold little bearing, according to the Reading boss.
“Some players are still in the squad from that time,” continued Gomes.
“But it’s a new squad now, and it will be a different game. And hopefully we will get the three points.”