Portsmouth boss John Mousinho has labelled the situation at Reading as 'sad' ahead of the first meeting between the clubs for over a decade.

Pompey sit top of League One and are on a run of 25 matches unbeaten, while Ruben Selles' Royals are sat second from bottom and are already eight points adrift of safety.

With many supporters believing the match result to be a foregone conclusion, many are looking forward to the pre-match protest, with potentially up to 1,000 marching from the town centre to the SCL Stadium.

This comes after six years of neglectful ownership from Dai Yongge, with the club accumulating 16 points of deductions under his stewardship for financial mismanagement.

Portsmouth, who had their own financial issues of their own in the 2010s, have not visited Berkshire since 2012- the year Reading won the Championship and Pompey were relegated to League One.

‘It’s not an ideal situation, they’ve had the points deduction, they were relegated last season and now find themselves at the wrong end of the table," the former Oxford United defender told Portsmouth News.

"Unfortunately Pompey have seen similar times and it’s not nice as a fan. Thankfully we are out the other end of it and hopefully looking to be on the way up.

"It’s one of the sad things in football – but the fans will always be there, they will be the ones that are loyal and the ones that suffer the most."