With a plethora of star men from both clubs missing, a high-scoring classic should not be expected at the Madejski, although Arsenal still possess some effervescent attacking forces ready to make their presence felt.
For all of their League One troubles, Reading have had no problem breaching opposing backlines in Group F either, and we can picture the Royals coming out on top in the shootout following a closely-contested draw to advance as section winners.
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Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Reading win with a probability of 46.73%. A win for Arsenal Under-21s had a probability of 30.61% and a draw had a probability of 22.7%.
The most likely scoreline for a Reading win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.14%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (6.87%) and 2-0 (6.3%). The likeliest Arsenal Under-21s win was 1-2 (7.23%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (9.97%). The actual scoreline of 5-2 was predicted with a 0.7% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Reading would win this match.
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