By james art 
Reading will host promotion favorites in League 1 and current League leaders Birmingham City at the car leasing stadium on Saturday (12.30pm).
The clubs are full of polar opposites in terms of investment, but both have their views of the promotion.
While Reading’s hope of climbing may seem optimistic, they are currently sitting only one point outside the playoff.
Royals had horrible financial problems with the owner Dai Yongge, which limited the club to sign only free agents and loans in several seasons.
Meanwhile, Birmingham is at the other end of the spectrum and have invested huge money to try to earn a promotion back in the championship, like last season.
The Blues broke the transfer record in League 1 to sign the striker Jay Stansfield of Fulham for about £ 15 million plus additives.
Stansfield is currently sitting at the top of the goal scorer in the division with 16 goals of 23 games.
Birmingham spends about 36 million pounds in the summer to give an excellent shot to get a promotion with a significantly larger budget than any other league team.
Birmingham has a nine -point lead at the top of the table with a game in hand over a second placed Wycombe Wanderers.
Reding and Birmingham met on the day of the Ligue 1 campaign in League 1 in St. Andrews, a game that ended with a draw.
Despite the bay in the transfer costs, it was the more impressive country for most of the match and continued forward in the first half through Kelvin Ehybhathiomhan.
The pianos looked as if they would take three points, but were refused late when the hosts received a controversial punishment, which was turned by Alfi May as the game ended 1-1.
Birmingham’s last visit to SCL in April 2023 also ended with 1-1 impasse. Andy Carroll opened the score, but Lucas Jutkevic equalized with the sharing of the points.
Predicted Reading Line: Pereira, Craig, Bindon, Mbengue, Garcia, Savage, Wing, Knibbs, Campbell, Ehibhatiomhan, Wareham