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FULL-TIME Liverpool 0-2 West Brom
Successive wins at Anfield for West Brom, who also move above Liverpool into eighth place.
90+4 min Johnson finds Sterling. Sterling's cross fails to beat the first man. It's been that sort of night for Liverpool.
90+3 min Coutinho's got a pleasing, tricky gait to him. He tries his luck from distance. The ball hits Olsson. Liverpool scream for handball, which would allow Steven Gerrard to miss another penalty. (Honestly, he does miss a lot more these days.) Instead it's only a corner, which West Brom clear.
90+1 min Five minutes of injury time to be played. Not that that's stopped the Liverpool fans from leaving in their swarms. Swathes of empty red seats to be seen now.
Game over! A superb breakaway goal from West Brom, and Brendan Rodgers' dreams of qualifying for the Champions League and possibly ruling the galaxy lie in ruins! Morrison came away with the ball on halfway and played the ball outside him to Lukaku. Lukaku turned Agger far too easily - far too easily - and smashed the ball low with his right foot into the bottom corner, even though Reina got a slight touch.
88 min Liverpool are still pinned inside their own half here. West Brom's front two are doing an excellent pressing job on Liverpool's back four, not allowing the easy ball into midfield. This may be Steve Clarke's team, but in terms of drilling and work-rate it still very much bears the imprint of Roy Hodgson.
87 min Sterling pops up on the right wing now, trying to feed the ball through to Suarez. It's intercepted, and West Brom can break with Lukaku, nicking the ball away from Carragher. Lukaku is one-on-one with Agger, hurtling left then right, and eventually firing a low right-footed shot (his weaker foot) across Reina that runs just wide.
Whistler gives penalty for foul on Suarez - ravens seen leaving Tower of London whilst Lord Lucan rides Shergar through a Tesco supermarket.
83 min In the middle of all that penalty/goal malarkey, Liverpool brought on Philippe Coutinho for Stewart Downing. It's Coutinho's Liverpool debut. A tip for the lad: score two goals now, and you'll never have to pay for a drink in Liverpool again.
Unbelievable! Liverpool have had 19 attempts on goal. West Brom have had one. But with their second, Gareth McAuley rises to meet a Brunt corner. It's a magnificent header, smacking off the crossbar and nestling in the corner, and West Brom are nine minutes away from pulling off a burglary the likes of which few get away with. Even in Liverpool.
79 min Now Mulumbu and Suarez are exchanging angry words. Hardly surprising. Suarez is pretty much the most annoying striker on planet Earth. Even the implacable Sylvain Distin was moved to describe him as "a pain in the ass" in a France Football interview last week.
78 min A magnificent fingertip save from Foster, but you might say justice has been served there. It was a lamentably soft penalty, given against McAuley as he and Suarez tussled over a cross. Suarez went down, McAuley stayed on his feet, but that was about all you could say about it.
77 min PENALTY SAVED (Gerrard) Gerrard places it low to the right, and FOSTER SAVES!
76 min PENALTY TO LIVERPOOL
75 min Gerrard tries a curling shot from 20 yards. Well over the bar.
74 min Lukaku replaces Dorrans, who's been a massive disappointment tonight. West Brom going 4-4-2, with Morrison moving out to the right.
73 min Morrison and Brunt shown yellow cards in quick succession, the latter for a snip on Suarez just outside the area. Downing lines up the free-kick... and it's well over. Liverpool certainly creating more, but they're being continually frustrated.
71 min Gerrard with the volley from 18 yards! Foster with a brilliant save! Borini with the follow-up! Into the side netting! Now it's hotting up. Now the Kop are getting into this.
70 min Suarez with a fierce shot! Brilliant challenge by Gareth McAuley! Suarez just took a fraction of a second too long on the ball there.
69 min Liverpool clear a rare West Brom corner and break with Sterling. Sterling sidesteps away from Ridgewell and is fouled. Yellow card to Ridgewell. Email from William Walsh:
And in essence, that's what's happened. Shelvey, by the way, added to his epic collection of misses while on under-21 duty last week.
68 min Borini with a sharp toe-poke from 20 yards that startles Foster! It was a fairly routine save in the end, but a fierce, opportunistic attempt from Borini.
67 min Enrique gets himself into a tight spot on the halfway line, but does well to hold off Mulumbu and clear.
65 min Borini looks to have taken up a position in the centre, with Downing on the right, Sterling on the left and Suarez doing pretty much whatever the hell he wants.
63 min Lucas dispossesses Long, but gives away a throw. Marc Melander writes of the recently-departed Jonjo Shelvey:
PS Is the ref THE Jon Moss once of Culture Club infamy ?
I suspect not. But imagine! Imagine him asking a player: "Did you really want to hurt him?"
62 min Enrique gets down the left and whips a cross into the near post. Standing at that near post is Ben Foster, with the clear advantage of being able to use his hands, and he uses those hands to catch the ball.
59 min Liverpool ring the changes. Two substitutions: Borini and Sterling for Shelvey and Henderson, neither of whom has been very good tonight. And I speak as a (relative) Henderson sympathiser. Meanwhile, an email from Clive Young:
58 min Luis Suarez, brilliant as he is normally, has been complete toilet tonight. Here he gets the ball 25 yards out, that familiar roar of expectation goes up, and he ends up dragging the shot so wide it barely makes it to the goal-line.
55 min Gerrard crosses for Shelvey. It's a poor cross, though - doesn't clear the first man. Nevertheless, signs that the game is opening up just a little.
53 min Carragher heads wide! Shelvey follows up! Oh, he's offside! Carragher headed the ball back across goal, Shelvey looked poised to pounce, but a) he was offside and b) he missed anyway. Still, someone - perhaps Sian Massey - needs to go down to Melwood at some stage and teach Jonjo Shelvey the offside rule.
51 min Henderson tries the Welbeck flick and almost gets it past Foster! A clever improvised finish, that, after Downing had fed Johnson on the right.
49 min Ben Foster dives at the feet of Gerrard as he follows up on Downing's shot! Downing's initial shot was deflected, but still managed bobble through towards goal. Gerrard stole in, and Foster needed to be alert to finagle the ball away.
47 min Long ball from Ridgewell, and Long can rise unchallenged to knock the ball down to Morrison. Liverpool are short of numbers here, but more get back as Mulumbu plays it out to Dorrans. By the time Dorrans' high cross floats straight into the arms of Reina, all panic has been well and truly averted.
21.02 The second half is under way. Now, I'm a reasonable man. We're all reasonable people. We don't ask for much. We'd just like the second half of this football match to not suck. Any danger?
21.00 This game has a sort of Debrecen feel about it. Not that I'm suggesting it's crooked, it's just a bit dull. West Brom are sticking to their gameplan very well indeed. Block up the centre, force Liverpool wide and head away anything that comes in. In the absence of a natural target for crosses (although Agger's efforts from two set pieces show what can be done) Liverpool need a little more guile in the final third to pick their way through. Perhaps Gerrard needs to play a little further forward. I'm almost certain he used to be good once.
HALF-TIME Liverpool 0-0 West Brom
45 min Suarez looked certain to score there! It was a cross from the right by Downing, I think, and Suarez was unmarked six yards out and poised to nod it in. Instead, Olsson swung a despairing left boot at it and hacked it clear with his toe. You'll scarcely see a better saving clearance all season. One minute of injury time to be played.
44 min Mulumbu wins the ball in midfield. West Brom win the throw on the right. It's been that sort of game, and thus it's been that sort of live blog. West Brom take the throw in the right. It is largely inconsequential.
42 min Foul by Reid on Suarez. Suarez really went flying there, which usually proves nothing other than that he's making an effort, but Reid really did go in late there, and deserves his booking.
40 min Steven Reid almost slices the ball into his own net! That was almost a calamity for West Brom! There was nobody within 10 yards of him as Shelvey crossed low from the right, but as Reid tried to hack it away it skewed off the outside of his boot and flew only a couple of feet over the bar.
39 min Two long clearances in a row, one from Reina, the other from Foster. Come on, lads. This isn't the Six Nations.
37 min It's taken 37 minutes for it to really dawn on me, but dawn on me it finally has: this hasn't been a very interesting game. Anfield's been a bit flat, too, which doesn't really help.
35 min West Brom corner from the left wing. It's headed away at the near post, but given away again, and Dorrans has the chance to get a cross in, which he wastes.
33 min Another free header for Agger! This time it goes wide. Set pieces look like Liverpool's likeliest outlet so far.
32 min Suarez with a little room to squiggle around by the right byline. He only needs a little, of course, but this time his touch his heavy. Pulling up soon, meanwhile, in a driveway near you...
30 min Olsson heads the corner away, and a lovely touch from Morrison allows West Brom to break. Big challenge from Henderson on Dorrans, though. Dorrans was just about to set Long clear.
29 min Downing, who's been lively, tries to cross from the right and wins a corner.
27 min Brunt and Morrison combine on the West Brom left. Morrison tries to squeeze in a cross, can't quite do it, and ends up tumbling over the advertising hoardings. If this game doesn't liven up, that incident will almost certainly make it into Sky's end-credits highlights reel.
25 min Downing with a brutal shot from 24 yards! Foster beats it away! It was a lovely move from Liverpool, which began with another of Gerrard's epoch-defining Hollywood passes, across the entire width of the pitch.
24 min Liverpool corner from the right. Agger heads it at goal, and Foster tips the ball over the bar to make sure. Another corner, which is markedly less eventful.
22 min Morrison wins the ball in the Liverpool half and plays it through to Long, who can't turn and get his shot away. West Brom are certainly pressing all the way up the pitch. It's a nice clash of styles here - Rodgers and his doctrine of short passing at all costs will certainly be tested by the energetic hustle of the West Brom front four, who may force them into an error.
20 min Nothing comes of the corner. Coral's by the way, are offering odds of 40/1 on a Carragher goal tonight. You can also get 5,000/1 on him being appointed as the new pope.
19 min Downing tries his luck from about 18 yards. It's deflected behind for a corner. Jamie Carragher, the Bootle Baresi, trots forward in search of a rare - a very rare - goal.
18 min Liverpool break with Gerrard. West Brom are quickly back in position, but Suarez has Downing on the overlap. His ball isn't great, and Downing has to scramble to get the cross in from the right byline, which is ultimately too high to be off much use to anyone.
16 min Here's an email from Nick Morrow.
What do we think about the Anfield crowd? Impatient? Easily frustrated?
15 min Olsson and McAuley go up for the same ball - with no Liverpool player in sight - and clash heads. That's one of those you can file under 'funny as long as nobody gets hurt'. Fortunately, nobody does.
14 min Further ammunition for the theory that footballers see long lay-offs as merely another opportunity for 'lookin good...' Here's Daniel Sturridge.
12 min Johnson loses possession to Ridgewell on the Liverpool right. Nevertheless, he's started brightly, getting in more advanced positions than Enrique on the opposite wing.
9 min GOAL DISALLOWED (Liverpool) Shelvey has the ball in the net after Ben Foster's fumble, but the flag is up! Glen Johnson, as he so often does, cuts in from the right and shoots with his left, possibly startling Foster with the pace and accuracy of the shot. Foster really should have done better, though, even if the advancing Shelvey was offside.
8 min Johnson tries to nudge it through to Suarez with the outside of his foot, but Suarez, like two of his team-mates, is offside. It's been a tight, even start - West Brom pressing very well in the centre, forcing Liverpool to build their attacks from the flanks.
6 min Suarez has the first shot on goal, a dipping volley from the corner of the penalty area that flashes well wide.
5 min Downing links up with Johnson on the right and crosses low, looking for Suarez. Yacob sticks a foot out and intercepts.
4 min Brunt crosses from near the corner flag on the left. Reina catches.
3 min This really wouldn't be a great start, having given Dorrans the hard sell in the preamble. He landed hard on his spine there, but he's back to his feet after a little treatment.
2 min Quiet start to this game. Dorrans and Enrique go up for a high ball, Dorrans hits the ground awkwardly, and referee Jon Moss stops play to let the physio on.
20.00 We're under way. Both teams playing from left to right. Well, West Brom are, anyway.
19.56 The teams are in the tunnel, everyone!
19.35 Daniel Sturridge has failed a fitness test on his thigh injury. Philippe Coutinho sits on the bench for the first time. Liam Ridgewell and Youssef Mulumbu come in for West Brom, with Goran Popov, Romelu Lukaku dropped to the bench, and Peter Odemwingie still on the naughty step. Perhaps it's telling that 10 of the West Brom starting eleven tonight played in that 3-0 win in August.
Graham Dorrans is the 11th, and he's a player I'm always willing to watch. When I first started reporting on football games in the 2009/10 season, I was doing a lot of Championship stuff, and Dorrans was one of the players who really lit up that Championship season. Superb touch, superb vision, an outstanding dead-ball delivery. For some reason he hasn't really 'kicked on', as they say, and was put up for sale last month. Nobody bought him, and Steve Clarke's decided to take one last punt. This is good news for everyone.
19.20 Tomorrow night, the world of football will prepare to be transfixed once more by the Champions League, with all its tinselly ostentation, meticulous branding and fancy players with only one name. The sight of Manchester United locking horns with Real Madrid or Celtic doing battle with Juventus may well bring Liverpool's current situation into sharp relief. As Kenny Dalglish found out, trips to Wembley will only win you so many cool points. Liverpool is a club that needs the Champions League, that feels like it belongs there, and from day one, the objective handed to Brendan Rodgers by FSG has always been to return there with gain of time.
For most of Rodgers' tenure, it's been assumed that next season was a more realistic timeframe for an assault on the top four. As the old saying goes, after all, you can't make a silk purse out of Jonjo Shelvey, although he would make quite an effective guard dog. But in the run-up to tonight's game, Rodgers reckons Liverpool could even do it this season, despite a 12-point gap to Tottenham in fourth. (The same gap, by the way, that separates them from Aston Villa in 17th.) Anyway, this is what Rodgers had to say:
As anybody who watched Being:Liverpool will know, Rodgers can certainly talk a good game. But could Liverpool really deliver Champions League football to Anfield by August? If they are going to mount a challenge, tonight's game is of the sort they need to win. West Brom gave Liverpool a fearful roughing up on the opening day of the season, winning 3-0 and going on a golden autumn run that saw them briefly flirt with the top four. Things have calmed down quite a bit since then - on the pitch, if not in the car park. Steve Clarke, of course, knows both clubs inside out, which should remind Liverpool not to trifle with them.
Hope that's warmed you up sufficiently. Here are your teams.
Liverpool (4-2-3-1): Reina; Johnson, Carragher, Agger, Enrique; Lucas, Gerrard; Downing, Shelvey, Henderson; Suarez.
Subs: Jones, Wisdom, Skrtel, Allen, Borini, Sterling, Coutinho.
West Brom (4-2-3-1): Foster; Reid, McAuley, Olsson, Ridgewell; Mulumbu, Yacob; Morrison, Dorrans, Brunt; Long.
Subs: Myhill, Jones, Rosenberg, Tamas, Thomas, Fortune, Lukaku.
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