READING FC go in search of their fifth victory in six Championship fixtures when they make the short trip to Brentford tonight (7.45pm ko).

But Royals boss Jaap Stam expects nothing less that a tricky evening at Griffin Park.

Reading have sold out all 1,660 away tickets for the clash against the Bees, who could leapfrog Stam's side with a victory over the visitors.

But Royals will be determined to extend their unbeaten run in all competition to nine matches when they go to west London.

“It will be a difficult game over there at Griffin Park, we’re looking forward to it,” said Stam.

“It’s a quick turnaround from Saturday but playing games is always nicer than being on the training pitch and everybody is excited about the next game.

"Hopefully we can get some points as well in this next fixture.”

Royals knocked Huddersfield Town off top spot with a nervy 1-0 home victory at Madejski Stadium on Saturday.

Roy Beerens struck the decisive goal, but Stam's men were rarely at their best against the tenacious Terriers who played for more than an hour with 10 men.

Stam admitted: “We’ve looked at some clips of the Huddersfield game and about what we can do better.

“I think that is a good thing because we want to improve ourselves every time, as players but also as a team and we’ve got some points that we can work on.

“Everybody is very happy with the results at the moment but we are just looking at it game by game.

“We are not looking at the run we’ve had, we are just focussed on not losing games. Every game we play we want to get points and we want to get a win if it’s possible.

“Our opponents will be looking to do a similar thing, to stop us playing and to make it difficult for us.

“If you win games there is a lot of confidence, but we know that we still need to improve and we need to do better if we want to control games against good teams.”

Tonight's clash will see in-form Royals midfielder John Swift return to Brentford having scored seven goals in 27 league games on loan for the Bees from Chelsea last season.

Royals will be without Tyler Blackett and Garath McCleary through suspension, while Yakou Meite and Deniss Rakels are both injured.

Bees will also be missing midfielder Ryan Woods through suspension after picking up his fifth booking of the season in last Saturday's 3-1 defeat at Wolves.

Bees boss Dean Smith is sweating on the fitness of midfielders Josh McEachran (foot) and Lewis Macleod (knee). Full-back Rico Henry is sidelined with a shoulder problem.

Brentford have won four of their last six league meetings against the Royals, who have not kept a clean sheet at Griffin Park past since 1973, a run of 21 games in all competitions.