[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

The trees are up, the lights are on, and early tomorrow afternoon we're jingling into the festive season with the first of our derbies against Birmingham for the season. From the outside, it's difficult to judge what's going on with Blues at the best of times, as St Andrews seems a permanent circus of farce and failure, with 2019 alone bringing a points deduction, the sacking of an able manager in Garry Monk, the elevation of his assistant Pep Clotet resulting in a bizarre war of words between the two, and the team taking yet another protracted voyage into mid-table mediocrity.

A 3-2 victory at Reading last Saturday suggests they're capable of doing a job on the road, though they followed it up with an abject defeat at home to QPR in the week. For Albion, meanwhile, the trip to Wigan fell well short of our expectations, and we have to hope that we'll be back to full strength and playing with our usual verve for this crucial clash. Derbies being derbies, just about anything could happen, but an in-form Albion should have enough to take the three points.