[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

With the sleigh bells jingling and the Dingles dingling, Albion head into the festive season with top spot in the Championship all to ourselves, and a solid twelve-point cushion separating us from the dreaded playoffs.  But with four matches to get through before the evening of New Year's Day, that lead could conceivably evaporate altogether in an incredibly bleak midwinter.  It's up to Bilic's Baggies to stretch the current twelve-game unbeaten run - our longest since Di Matteo held the reins in spring 2010 - and take us into the new decade with the Premier League in our sights.

First up, Brentford visit the Hawthorns on Saturday for one last pre-Christmas cracker, having crept up to 4th place on the back of tough wins against Cardiff and Fulham.  With that kind of threat to top teams, and Albion looking a bit off-colour in the last couple of games, we'll have to be back to our best to keep the momentum going.  It might take an even bigger Christmas miracle to take three points from our Boxing Day visit to Oakwell, where we haven't won a game of competitive football in seventeen attempts since August 1947.  Barnsley's current berth at the bottom of the league means this is probably our best opportunity to overturn that curse, but having already held us to a 2-2 draw in B71 this autumn, the Tykes do seem to find a way of thwarting our best-laid plans.

A week on Sunday it's the turn of Middlesbrough to pay us a call, still floundering in the dogfight and desperate for points, before the main event to open 2020: a clash of the two promotion favourites with Leeds coming to town on New Year's Day.  And so for the fortnight ahead, I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Saturday 21st December - WBA vs Brentford - 15:00
Thursday 26th December - Barnsley vs WBA - 15:00
Sunday 29th December - WBA vs Middlesbrough - 15:00
Wednesday 1st January - WBA vs Leeds - 17:15