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Football fans will get another peak into the drama that is playing out in the English Premier League tomorrow.

The first five
teams on the table are separated by five points and the last eight
teams on the log are also separated by five points. So two wins on the
trot can take a team from relegation to mid-table and a loss of two
straight matches at the top will have the same consequence.

In the top match of the day, West Bromwich Albion will host league leaders Manchester United.

West Brom have lost
their last three league matches and have plunged down the table to 14th
while United, who, according to Alex Ferguson, were ‘robbed’ of victory
at St. Andrews are at the top of the table with a game in hand. To
maintain this momentum, United need to nix the three points but Albion
also need a victory to continue the good work of Roberto Di Matteo.

Nigerian striker,
Osaze Odemwingie missed a glut of scoring chances against Bolton and
the six-goal hero was brunt of negative comments from fans. But Di
Matteo, has defended the striker saying, “Peter had two fantastic
chances and it’s quite unusual for him (to miss them). He’s quite
composed in front of goal and he usually scores. But that will come.
Apart from the chances, he had a good game. If he scored a goal or two
then we would be talking in different terms. He’ll be okay.”

The former Chelsea player will be doing his former team a great favour if he can stop the United juggernaut.

With their loss at
home to Blackburn, the Baggies have not won in three matches and are
being steadily dragged into the relegation zone. But Odemwingie has
sounded a rallying call to his team mates to brace up for the fight
ahead. “The coach said we need to be more clinical but my big worry
will be when we don’t have chances and lose,” he said on the club’s
website.

“Against Bolton we
had five good chances to score – let’s call it a bad day for us. It was
disappointing as I want our fans to go home with a smile. We played
very well; even our manager was satisfied with the performance, just
not the finishing.”

United are strong defensively

For West Brom to
record a victory tomorrow, the finishing definitely has to improve as
United boast of two defenders in Rio Ferdinand and Captain Nemanja
Vidic, who do not give any quarter. And Ferdinand is now looking ahead
to Saturday’s encounter to make amends for the two points United
dropped at Birmingham. “We should have got the three points at
Birmingham but we’ll be looking to the next game to make things right,”
Ferdinand said on United TV.

“I thought, on the
whole, we deserved to win at St Andrew’s. But you want to shut games
out like that and we didn’t manage to do it. It was a kick in the teeth
to concede the equaliser so late on.”

Ferdinand however added that the inability to call those kind of games is what makes the league very interesting.

“It’s what makes
the Premier League such a great league to play in. You get a different
set of tasks in front of you each week and you have to deal with them.”

Dealing with the
Albion players and crowd is what United have to do on Saturday as they
travel to a team that held them 2-2 at Old Trafford courtesy of a
goalkeeping howler from Edwin Van Der Saar. Albion have not won against
the Red Devils since March 1984 when Cyrille Regis and Steve Mackenzie
scored in a 2-0 win at the Hawthorns.

Other matches

Liverpool have
fallen again to the malaise of early season and Roy Hodgson knows that
his job is on the line with the Wednesday loss to bottom of the table,
Wolves. Wolves will now face West Ham with the loser starting the New
Year at the bottom of the league.

Tottenham will also love to move back to fourth place on the table with victory over Fulham.

And Manchester City could go top of the table if they beat an
unpredictable Blackpool team at the City of Manchester Stadium and
United slip up at the Hawthorns.