Good evening, and welcome to recently-improved Liverpool's latest attempt to beat a team in the top half of the Premier League (their record against top-half teams so far this season: P13 W0 D7 L6), against a side that has lost five of their last six in the league (drawing the other) and kept just one clean sheet in 29 top-flight away games (albeit at Anfield, where they won 1-0 in April) and still will overtake the Reds if they win. The Baggies will be without suspended spitter Goran Popov (though Peter Odemwingie is in the squad); Liverpool have no Sturridge.
Let's start with some more statistics, which so often can convince you that you know what's about to happen in a football match until the match actually starts and something else happens instead.
• Liverpool's last three home matches have all featured clean sheets and Luis Suárez goals. Statistical scoreline: Liverpool 1-0 West Brom
• West Brom haven't won a top-flight away match on a Monday since 1969 (they have failed 14 times since). Statistical scoreline: Liverpool 2-0 West Brom
• Liverpool have won 64, or 46%, of the teams' 139 previous matches, and 33, or 55%, of their 60 league matches at Anfield, as well as seven, or 50%, of all matches played in February (though the other games included a 5-1 defeat in 1938 and a 6-1 shellacking two years earlier). Statistical scoreline: Liverpool 3-1 West Brom
• In matches played against West Brom on the 11th day of a month Liverpool have a near-perfect record: P5 W4 D1 F8 A1. But Liverpool are generally less convincing in matches against these opponents played in February (P14 W7 D3 L4, including 5-1 and 6-1 thumpings in the 30s). Statistical scoreline: Liverpool 4-1 West Brom
• In years when Daniel Day-Lewis wins Baftas Liverpool do particularly well against West Brom. Although the teams didn't meet in 1990, when Day-Lewis was first recognised for his work in My Left Foot, Liverpool did win the league (for the last time). Day-Lewis's next success, for Gangs of New York in 2003, prompted a 6-0 away win for the Reds at the Hawthorns (their only meeting in that calendar year), while his nod for There Will be Blood in 2008 coincided with a 3-0 win at Anfield (again their only meeting that year). Statistical scoreline: Liverpool 5-1 West Brom
• This week Mumford and Sons won the award for best album at the Grammys. The last time a British male act won that prize and Liverpool played Albion in the same year, it was Phil Collins for No Talent Jacket Required in 1986 – when Liverpool won 2-1 at the Hawthorns. You may also count Robert Plant (winner with the American Alison Krauss in 2009; West Brom 0-2 Liverpool), John Lennon (winner with Yoko Ono in 1982; Liverpool 1-0 West Brom, Liverpool 2-0 West Brom), the Bee Gees (though some people from other places also contributed songs to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack which won in 1979; Liverpool 2-1 West Brom, Liverpool 3-1 West Brom, West Brom 0-2 Liverpool), or Fleetwood Mac (though only half of them was British, and one of them was a woman, when they won for Rumours in 1978; West Brom 0-1 Liverpool, West Brom 1-1 Liverpool), or George Harrison (though The Concert for Bangladesh, winner in 1973, was recorded with various "friends" who came from all over the place; West Brom 1-1 Liverpool, Liverpool 2-1 West Brom, Liverpool 1-0 West Brom). The only sniff of optimism here for the Baggies comes from The Beatles' victory for Sgt Pepper's in 1968, a year when the teams met five times and they won once, an FA Cup second replay, but even then Liverpool won 4-1 at home in the league. And anyway, The Beatles were from Liverpool, so can't possibly be a good omen for the other lot. Statistical scoreline: Liverpool 6-1 West Brom
Statistical conclusion: home winLikelihood of any of those statistics being remotely relevant: none
I'll be here from 7.30pm or so. 'Til then, then…
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