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Reading will be delighted after salvaging a point from their opening fixture with Stoke, but a midweek trip to Chelsea will be an altogether more daunting experience.

A lot was made in pre-season about how Chelsea's new wealth of attacking talent would migrate into the side, however Eden Hazard in particular proved that he could walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

Hazard was involved in both goals against Wigan and already the Belgian looks like becoming one of those players with the ability to win games on his own.

With such encouraging debuts for new stars Hazard and Oscar, you would expect Chelsea to overwhelm the Royals in defence as they did in the early stages at the DW Stadium.

If Roman Abramovich wanted attacking football then he also must have cracked a smile when witnessing the performance of Chelsea's new marauding right winger, Branislav Ivanovic!

The west Londoners laid down an impressive marker at Wigan and in front of their fans you just feel that the Blues will outclass newly promoted Reading.

The teams have only met four times in the Premier League, with Chelsea winning all but one of them and drawing the other 2-2.

The Berkshire sides' away record against the big teams makes fairly woeful reading too; in their previous stint in the top flight, Reading took only five away points in total against last season's top six clubs. And as Opta tell us, Reading have only won seven of their 38 road trips in the Premier League to date.

One shred of positivity though is that the visitors have managed to find the back of the net in 19 of their last 20 games, albeit against lesser opposition. It is difficult to look beyond the home win here at 1.27.

Chelsea to score in both halves

With Chelsea's beginning the season so strongly, there is potential here for a bit of a goal fest.

With the likes of Hazard, Juan Mata, Fernando Torres, Frank Lampard and Oscar all providing a goal threat, it is difficult to see Reading keeping the hosts out in either half and at 1.77, this makes an attractive punt.

Stamford Bridge is traditionally a prosperous home for Chelsea, in the last three league games of last season there, they plundered eight goals, only failing to register twice there in the whole of the 2011/12 Premier League campaign.

Sending off

Given the derby-like nature of this fixture, it's not at all surprising that it has thrown up a few disciplinary issues over the years.

As Opta tell us, there have been three red cards in the four Premier League games between Reading and Chelsea (two for Reading, one for Chelsea), so
backing a red card at 5.3 has a certain sadistic pull. Calm down boys.

Best Bet: Back Chelsea to score in both halves @ 1.77
Other Recommended Bet: Back there to be a sending off @ 5.3

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