[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Astle shoots past Brian Labone to give Albion the lead against eventual league champions Everton, the Hawthorns, 8th November 1969

A disappointing (but thoroughly typical) League Cup surrender in midweek leaves us once again able to spend the autumn concentrating on our Premier League campaign, and you'd hope that with over a week's rest since the Villa game, our first team are just about ready to run through a brick wall for another three points.  This will be the first in a run of five consecutive fixtures against sides who, like us, are aiming for mid-table finishes, so it's vital for us to get a good head of steam going between now and October's end.  If we can build on our excellent performance at Villa Park and keep the points coming, there's no reason why we shouldn't put some comfortable difference between us and the bottom three and be able, for once, to celebrate Christmas in B71 without flaming torches and predictions of a mid-May apocalypse.

Easier said than done, maybe.  Our clashes with Everton are usually unpredictable affairs where the form book largely goes out of the window for both teams.  They seem to be in the process of putting last season's struggles behind them and restoring themselves as an upper mid-table club, and yet an Albion win on Monday night would lift us nicely above the Toffees and their Merseyside neighbours into the heady heights of 7th.  If Lukaku fancies a lazy night, maybe we can make it happen.

In his sole appearance for the club, Jack Russell is Albion's man of the match against Everton with one assist; 27th November 1976