The Hawthorns
Saturday, 1 April

Kick-off: 1715 BST



West Brom (from): Kuszczak, Albrechtsen, Davies, Watson, Robinson, Greening, Kozak, Wallwork, Johnson, Kamara, Ellington, Kanu, Campbell, Hoult, Gera, Inamoto, Campbell.


Liverpool (from): Reina, Finnan, Kromkamp, Carragher, Agger, Hyypia, Warnock, Riise, Traore, Garcia, Alonso, Hamann, Sissoko, Kewell, Fowler, Morientes, Crouch, Cisse, Dudek.




I’m not too concerned about this game, even without Gerrard. As Rafa said yesterday:

"The team has proved we can play without Steven Gerrard. He is a key player who scores goals, but the team now has the confidence to play without him.
"We showed we were working really hard to win and we have gained confidence.
"We are scoring goals from the strikers and midfielders - and they are working really hard as a team."

West Brom have got Kamara back but are without Kirkland and keeper Quashie. We’re still not sure if Traore will walk out at The Hawthorns.


We’re on 19 out of a possible 24 points for the last 8 games and I can see no reason why we won’t get another 3 tomorrow. Third place looks secure, but trying to chase the Mankers for 2nd and automatic group stage for Europe seems a little ambitious.


I was looking on the BBC 5 Live site and some of our statistics for the season make interesting reading:


BIG-MATCH FACTS
• West Bromwich Albion face a Liverpool side with a 100% Premiership record against them of played five, won five, with five clean sheets. The Champions League chasing Merseysiders are bidding for a fourth successive Premiership victory, while the relegation threatened Baggies are hoping to avoid a fourth consecutive home League defeat, having cruelly ended up with nothing from Monday's visit to Tottenham after a late error from goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak, which led to Robbie Keane's match winning penalty.


• Albion have won only one of 13 home League exchanges with Liverpool over 34 years. That being 2-0 on 17 April 1982. Premiership contests at the Hawthorns have resulted in 0-6 and 0-5 defeats in April 2003 and Boxing Day 2004. Michael Owen scored four times in the former and John Arne Riise helped himself to a brace last season.


• LIVERPOOL have already bagged more points than they accumulated for the whole of last season (totalled 58 last season, on 64 this with six to play). The Reds took 11 games to total 12 Premiership goals at the beginning of the season - now they've managed 11 in three and that excludes the 0-7 hammering of Birmingham at St Andrews in the FA Cup, which also came in their current four-match winning sequence. Rafael Benitez' club are well placed to finish third in the table, but it's now become a big ask to pip Manchester United to runners-up spot and automatic qualification to the group stages of the Champions League, being five points adrift having played one more match.




• Liverpool made it 10 out of 10 in terms of consecutive Premier League victories when Peter Crouch fired home the winner in this season's reverse fixture on New Year's Eve. It sets the Reds up for a possible third Premiership 'double' over the Baggies, a fourth in a row and a 15th since they first locked horns in League combat in 1894.