[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

For the benefit of anyone who's spent the last few weeks with their head in a bucket on the outermost moon of Neptune, this Friday night sees the visit, for the first time in nearly three years, of Aston Villa to the Hawthorns. With two points dropped on Monday (while Villa notched up a win on Saturday and enjoyed an extra two days' break), the omens aren't great heading into this, but given that our aquatic friends have a long history of putting in blinding performances against us even when they've been laughably poor for months beforehand, we can perhaps cling to the hope that the form book can go out of the window on this one.

Both sides have proven strong up front and weak at the back this season, and it could well rain goals at both ends. Both managers will know exactly what the derby means, though Dean Smith is still enjoying a bit of a honeymoon period that might come to an ignominious end. For Big Dave... well, his time in the hotseat will be judged by more than one match: however, for most Albion fans this is *the* fixture of 2018, and in the space of ninety minutes, a lot of memories can be made that will stick in the minds of supporters, for better or worse, for a long time to come.


Put Monday night behind us; it's time to get the job done.