Reading have conceded just once all season – but Tony Mowbray isn’t expecting an all-out defensive display from the league leaders.

Tomorrow night’s game is a meeting of the league’s best attack, and defence, with Rovers having scored 16 times in their seven matches.

Mowbray’s men go into the game on the back of scoring four times away from home for the second time this season, but have failed to find the net in their previous two Ewood fixtures.

They suffered just a third home defeat in 20 matches last time out against Forest, having been held to a 0-0 draw with Cardiff City before the international.

Teams who have come with a defensive structure have proven difficult for Rovers to break through, despite their free-flowing displays on the road, but Mowbray hopes the work they’ve done on the training pitch, and the new additions, can revive their attacking fortunes at Ewood.

“I don’t think they’re necessarily going to come and park the bus, but they’ll be very disciplined as any team that’s only conceded one goal, they’re very conscious of their work behind the ball, stopping transitions, stopping counter-attacks,” Mowbray said of Reading.

“I would assume they’ll be coming very disciplined and we have to try and break that down.

“We’ve been trying to work on that, teams with deep blocks, I don’t anticipate them coming with a particularly low block, but equally don’t think they’ll be coming overly cavalier and just attacking and trying to out-gun us.

“I think it’ll be quite a tactical game. We showed improvement at Coventry breaking down a team with two banks of four, although they only had 10 men that can sometimes be difficult.

“We managed to find a way to score some goals and let’s hope that continues.”

Veljko Paunovic has enjoyed an incredible start to life at the Madejski Stadium, taking 19 points from a possible 21, and keeping six clean sheets.

And Mowbray added: “It’s a great challenge for us against a team who have won six out of seven and drawn the other one.

“It’s an amazing number of points after seven games and it’s good to play a team who will come confident.

“We’d prefer to be playing with a crowd cheering us on after scoring a few goals in the last game, and that would bring an excitement and expectation, but we’ll have to give it our best shot without them. Hopefully we can find a way to win.”

Reading have still managed 11 goals, and Mowbray acknowledges they have plenty of attacking talent in their squad, including former Rovers loanee Lucas Joao.

But it’s their defensive record which particularly stands out, with four successive shut-outs.

“When I spoke to the analysis department about Reading and they said they’d conceded one goal, it’s quite amazing,” the Rovers boss said.

“I’ve spent the last couple of days watching them and it’s amazing, but they have a lot of attacking players in their squad as well.

“Lucas Joao is a player we know and is in good goalscoring form, Puscas, Meite, Ejaria, Swift is injured at the moment, but they have some good attacking footballers, but their result have been based around keeping clean sheets.

“Let’s wait and see, that’s the challenge for us.”