[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Brown Ideye becomes the first Albion player to score a winner against Stoke at the Hawthorns since Scott Dobie; 14th March 2015

This year the powers-that-be have, thankfully, spared us the usual misery of spending New Year's Day with a sore head watching Albion shuffle to a meek defeat.  The bad news is that the spectacle may just be postponed for twenty-four hours, as in-form Stoke visit us intent on revenge for the double we inflicted on them in 2015, and with a particular bone to pick about the uneven yet close-run contest in August.  For Albion, with the teams below us facing tough fixtures this weekend and a couple of tricky ones on the horizon for us, three points in this one would be a fantastic way of restoring - ideally - our nine point cushion against relegation.  But of course, when have three points at home against Stoke ever come easily?

A draw, even though we've seen a few too many of them recently, would probably be an acceptable return.  Another defeat, though, would invite a lot more pressure through the coming weeks, and perhaps heap a level of importance on the Villa derby later this month that we could do without.  It'd be nice to see the same kind of energy, attacking intent and spirit we saw against Newcastle at the start of the week - maybe to start 2016 as we mean to continue? - but caution may end up being the watchword again against a fast, mobile Stoke team.  We'll see.