Hello and welcome to our LIVE coverage of this afternoon's Premier League west Midlands derby between West Bromwich Albion and Birmingham City at The Hawthorns.

And it's WBA who get us underway!

The Baggies are in their traditional blue and white stripes, while the Blues, well, they're in red today.

And here come the teams!

jnw93 reckons 2-0 to Birmingham. No word from Baggies fans yet!

So we're all set for the first of 12 west Midland derbies this year. Who's your money on?

But West Brom have steadied the ship since an opening day nightmare against Chelsea and picked up a highly creditable 1-1 draw against Spurs in their last match.

Birmingham are flying high in fifth and were unlucky not to take all the points against Liverpool last time out.

Both sides will have looked at the fixture list and earmarked this match for three points.

And just the one change for Alex McLeish. The luckless James McFadden injured his ACL in training yesterday and in comes the Belarussian Alexander Hleb. Read about

So Baggies' boss Roberto Di Matteo names an unchanged side from the one that drew 1-1 against Tottenham.

And our ref today: Chris Foy from Merseyside.

And the teams are in! West Brom: Carson, Jara, Olsson, Tamas, Shorey, Thomas, Scharner, Mulumbu, Brunt, Odemwingie, Fortune. Subs: Myhill, Tchoyi, Pablo, Barnes, Bednar, Reid, Dorrans. /// Birmingham: Foster, Carr, Johnson, Dann, Ridgewell, Larsson, Gardner, Ferguson, Bowyer, Hleb, Jerome. Subs: Taylor, Murphy, Derbyshire, Michel, Fahey, Zigic, Beausejour.

Birmingham won the earlier match at St Andrews in October. Two goals from Gary McSheffrey proved enough in a 2-0 victory.

Damien Johnson's late strike rescued a point for the Blues that day after Paul McShane netted for the Baggies.

The two teams haven't met in the Premier League since 2006, but their last meeting in the Championship ended in a 1-1 draw in March 2007.

But Birmingham are unbeaten in their last four meetings with West Brom, winning two and drawing the others.

History favours the Blues today. The Baggies have only won one of 14 west Midland derbies in the Premier League - although that victory was against today's opponents back in 2005.