As the season hots up in the Championship, there is another big night of football in store and although Saints arent involved five promotion hopefuls are, with Southampton eyes on Reading.

The most important game of this evening from a Southampton perspective is Reading's trip to Doncaster Rovers, on paper this looks to be another Reading win, and one that would catapult them over West Ham and level with ourselves on points but assuming a modest win, vastly inferior goal difference.

However Reading's winning run has to end sometime and South Yorkshire is as good a place as any for that to happen, for their part Doncaster are fighting for their lives and are currently second from bottom in the Championship, however that doesnt tell the full story and in recent weeks they have rallied, they have games in hand and a win tonight would haul them up to within a point of Bristol City and safety with the luxury of still one more game in hand, their current form is good in the fact they are unbeaten in four, although three of those are draws and they showedon Saturday at West Ham that they are capable of springing a result or two against the top teams, a win for Donny would be nice, but even a draw would be acceptable for the dent it would put in Reading's form and confidence.

Elsewhere Cardiff are at home to Hull and both clubs need a win to keep up their play off spot challenge, whilst a draw wouldnt be disastrous for either, it would give an advantage to others in the melee that surrounds 4th spot to 12th with all of the clubs hoping a good late run will propel them into a top six spot come the final day of the season.

Two of those clubs are Leicester and Birmingham, both are faltering of late, everyone expected Leicester to come good after January but they have yet to really show it, if they lose tonight then they could find themselves eleven points behind a play off spot and with only ten games left thats a big ask, for their part Birmingham are using up one of their games in hand and they have to make it count, so its a desperate game for both.

The other game of the evening sees a local derby between Derby and Nottingham Forest, a win for the home side would see the Rams, looking upwards and thinking what if, whilst Forest if they lose could see themselves dragged back into a relegation battle, but a win could see them only a couple of wins from safety.

But its not just about Reading for Saints, ironically if Doncaster do win it could make our task a little harder on Saturday at Millwall, a win for Forest as well would leave the South London Club a little too close to the bottom three for comfort and its hard to predict how this would effect them, they could of course be inspired and go all out for the win that pushes them closer to safety, or it could make the nerves jangle and work in Saints favour, its getting interesting in the hampionship and the competitiveness of this league from top to bottom makes it more exciting that the two horse race that the premiership usually is.

Photo: Action Images

tiptop added 17:22 - Mar 13 Hv to assume Reading are going to win this one.Then its a level playing field. who could argue they wouldn't be odds on away to Barnsley too. When is their run going to end? Anyones guess bt with the volume of games im going for Peterborough or Blackpool(h). Our next two AWAY games must yield 4 points AT LEAST to keep in touch with that. The next 3 results for the top 3 are going to be an interesting period!! COYR's!!!!!

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