GARRY Monk brings promotion rivals Leeds United to Reading tomorrow looking to extend their unbeaten run to eight games.

Royals haven’t beaten the Whites in their last five attempts since a 4-2 win at Elland Road in May 2014 when Royston Drenthe scored one of his two club goals in a game where we were 4-0 up inside 55 minutes.

Since then, Leeds have won three and drawn two of the five meetings.

Going into this pivotal game, Reading have won just two of their last six matches, but that includes a huge victory at Sheffield Wednesday.

We look strong in fifth place, six points clear of Fulham just outside the play-offs.

As I said in last week’s column, beating Leeds could almost guarantee a play-off spot. Then we could look ahead to our likely opponents.

Could Fulham capitalise on the Owls’ poor form? Could Norwich and/or Preston mount a late surge? At this stage of the season, there are no easy opponents.

Moving onto those Jaap Stam to West Ham rumours that have been bouncing around. It is not going to happen.

Stam has done brilliantly to turn around Reading’s fortunes from the depths of the bottom of the Championship last year to serious promotion challengers with limited resources.

West Ham are, or at least should be, a solid Premier League team with the right to demand a top-quality manager.

Stam may well have worked wonders with a small squad at Reading, but he remains unproven so I doubt West Ham or any other Premier League club would take the risk.

The Dutchman has invested a lot of time and effort into changing not just the tactics, but completely overhauling the players’ attitudes and it would be a huge surprise to see him chuck that in.

Over the summer, we may have a challenge to keep him if we fail to win promotion, but with the promise of money to spend in the summer, I’m confident we can hold onto him.

Only Stam will be able to motivate the squad to deal with the threat of high-flying Leeds United this weekend.

I will be there as will a near full-house of loyal Royals, backing the team in what will be a fiery affair.