Liverpool v Bournemouth: Premier League – live!

39 min: Stanislas makes good down the inside left and pearls a shot towards the bottom left. Adrian parries, although not in a particularly confident style. The ball spins out for a corner, which Adrian clears with a much more definitive punch. Liverpool attempt to break upfield, but make a Horlicks of the three-on-two.

38 min: More ill feeling, as Gomez nudges Smith off the field and into the advertising hoardings. Smith whacks his noggin. He’s up soon enough, rubbing his head and moaning at the referee. Speaking of Gomez … “If Gomez goes down from the initial push the ref would probably blow for a foul before it got any further,” argues Dan C. “Maybe not a ‘clear and obvious error’ for VAR to overturn, but it doesn’t encourage honesty either. Which would we rather see?”

37 min: Salah, dropping deep on the right, rakes a diagonal looper towards Milner, coming in from the left. Milner connects, but volleys softly into the arms of Ramsdale. Bournemouth are holding on a bit.

35 min: Mane loses the flight of a long ball and sticks up an arm as it sails towards the stand. He’s still in play, though. Lerma and Fraser want him booked, and tell the referee so. The referee isn’t minded to flourish a yellow. The crowd aren’t too happy with Bournemouth’s demands. There’s a bit of an edge to this now, for one reason and another.

34 min: Klopp celebrated that goal with a wild scream, and a pointed holler in the ear of the linesman, who happened to be passing. He’s clearly still livid about that opening goal.

Van Dijk intercepts as Bournemouth consider a quick break. He rolls a straight ball down the middle for Mane, who is in acres. Mane advances towards the box, draws Ramsdale, and slips the ball past the keeper and into the bottom right. Easy as that.

31 min: Oxlade-Chamberlain has a dig from 25 yards. It pinballs around the Bournemouth box before the visitors clear. Liverpool are beginning to dominate.

29 min: Another corner for Liverpool … but this one is whizzed straight out of play by Alexander-Arnold. Bournemouth are getting pushed back again, their early verve suddenly lost.

28 min: This is much better from Simpson! Van Dijk floats a left-to-right diagonal for Alexander-Arnold, who fires across the face of goal. Mane is waiting to tap in, but Simpson somehow hooks behind for a corner, from which nothing occurs. That makes up for his earlier error … a bit.

27 min: Salah dug Mane out of a hole there. That move looked like falling apart, a superb chance about to be squandered, but Salah ensured it would count with a magnificent finish from the edge of the box. Mane will get an assist for that, but really.

Anfield is making some noise now! Mane robs Simpson, who was ambling out from the back, yet to get up to speed. Liverpool are two on one! Mane thinks about shooting, but rolls the ball to Salah on his right. It’s a dreadful pass, behind the man, but Salah checks, shifts inside, and threads a shot into the bottom right.

23 min: You could hear a pin drop at the minute. In the dugout, Klopp tries to whip up his charges. It’s all extremely flat. Penny for Pep Guardiola’s thoughts at the moment.

21 min: Liverpool win their first corner. Alexander-Arnold takes it from the right. Play is stopped as Wijnaldum takes an accidental whack from Ake’s flailing arm. Anfield wants a penalty, but there was no intent. Mind you, elsewhere, Lerma shoved Fabinho to the floor, so perhaps everyone was claiming for that. Either way, Liverpool are getting nowt, and the hosts look extremely agitated.

19 min: Simpson comes on for the Bournemouth captain Steve Cook. “I assume we can stop talking about VAR favouring Liverpool now, right?” asks Oliver Loksa. BT Sport refereeing guru Peter Walton certainly thinks it should have been a foul, as the “clear and obvious” bar is lowered significantly for an “upper body foul”. And he usually just parrots the official line, so make of that what you will.

17 min: Oxlade-Chamberlain plays a cute ball down the inside-right channel. Steve Cook stretches but can’t intercept. Firmino has space to shoot, but his effort is parried by Ramsdale. Bournemouth clear … but it looks like Cook has done his hamstring.

16 min: Lewis Cook plays a ball down the inside-left channel for Wilson, who beats the offside trap and zips upfield. Liverpool are again short at the back, and lucky that Wilson’s pass forward for Stanislas is too strong. Adrian claims.

14 min: Milner is forced to concede a corner out on the right. Fraser takes. Ake pearls a glorious header goalwards. Liverpool are fortunate that it’s straight at Adrian, who can tip over the bar. The second corner comes to nothing, but you can be sure most of the punters inside Anfield are currently thinking about Devon Loch.

13 min: Let’s see if James Milner’s pre-match team-talk had any effect. There’s no immediate sign, as Fraser crosses from the right. The ball only just flies over the head of Stanislas in the middle.

11 min: Liverpool have only themselves to blame for that one. Wilson did shove Gomez in the back, and off the ball, but everyone in red then stopped. Bournemouth played to the whistle, and VAR official Michael Oliver saw nothing wrong with Wilson’s challenge. Anfield falls silent, bar a few boos, and a cheer in the away end. On the touchline, Klopp throws his hands around, urging the crowd to get going.

Billing takes up possession, feeding Lerma down the right. He rolls the ball across the face of goal for Wilson, who taps home. VAR checks, decides there’s no shove on Gomez, and Liverpool are trailing again!

8 min: Wilson barges Gomez out of the way as the pair chase a long ball. It looks like a foul, but …

6 min: Bournemouth are sitting deep. Liverpool hogging possession. It already looks like being one of those games. Can the title hopefuls break through? Can the relegation strugglers hold out? Alexander-Arnold crosses for Salah. Steve Cook heads behind for a corner, but the flag goes up, correctly, for offside.

4 min: It’s a lovely late-winter, early-spring day at Anfield. Not much in the way of breeze. Liverpool stroke it around the back in a similarly mild style. Then suddenly there’s a little space for Alexander-Arnold down the right, but his cross is easily hoicked clear by Ake.

2 min: Otherwise, it’s a slow start, and Anfield has quickly fallen silent. Expect this to be a tense affair, unless Liverpool score early.

40 secs: A mazy dribble by Oxlade-Chamberlain down the right. The ball’s slipped inside for Van Dijk, who lumps forward and nearly releases Salah down the right. Ramsdale is out quickly to claim. An early statement of intent from the hosts.

Bournemouth get the ball rolling. They’ll be kicking towards the Kop in this first half.

The teams are out! Liverpool are four wins from the title, and the atmosphere at Anfield is accordingly hot. A huge roar as the players take to the field of play. Much amusement as the players meet, the hosts trooping along the line offering no handshakes, as per the coronavirus edict. Smiles all round at the oddity. Let’s balance out the fun with some pre-match misery, courtesy of Ian Copestake: “Despite defending Lovren far better than Lovren actually can himself, Juergen has not included him on the bench. Kudos to the Croatian for self-isolating. I am going to say this out loud, but I think this will not be a win for Liverpool. I’m no psychologist but until they get the game with Madrid-lite done and won then and only then will the burden they seem to be playing under will be lifted.”

BT Sport have been lugging into Liverpool stand-in captain James Milner’s pre-match pep talk. Here’s what he told the rest of the team as they were warming up. “Those reactions, straight away, as soon as we lose it, bodies round it, then we play all that area, eh? Doesn’t matter who scores, we score, they score, we lift it again. Every kick-off is a trigger for us.” Well that’s fate tempted. Goalless draw ahoy!

Jurgen’s version. “The results in the last four games were not exactly how we wanted them to be. So we have the chance to change the situation. Bournemouth have to fight for the league, so we have to fight, make it as difficult as possible, and get a result. In football you always have to find a solution.” Is Robertson rested or injured, BT Sport’s Des Kelly asks. A long pause, before a considered response. “Something in between?! He would have started today but he felt slightly bad, so he will be good, fine for Wednesday, but not today.”

Cherries boss Eddie Howe throws down the gauntlet. “It’s the ultimate test and that’s how we have to look at this game and approach it. It’s a great opportunity to show how good we are. You learn from every opponent’s gameplan and see if there’s anything that can help your team, but we are us. We are our unique team with the strengths that we possess, and I think we can cause them problems. We have to believe we can get a positive result today. Being in the bottom three should focus our energies in a positive way. We know we have to do something. The onus is on us.”

BREAKING NEWS: Liverpool will be playing in red …

… while Bournemouth will sport robustly couriered second-choice blue.

Liverpool make three changes to the team that went down so spectacularly at Watford last week. Adrian in for Alisson; Joe Gomez for Dejan Lovren; James Milner for Andy Robertson.

Bournemouth make one change from last weekend’s draw with Chelsea. Junior Stanislas replaces the injured Josh King.

Liverpool: Adrian, Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, van Dijk, Milner, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Mane, Firmino, Salah.
Subs: Keita, Minamino, Lallana, Lonergan, Origi, Matip, Williams.

Bournemouth: Ramsdale, Stacey, Steve Cook, Ake, Smith, Billing, Lerma, Lewis Cook, Stanislas, Callum Wilson, Fraser.
Subs: Boruc, Gosling, Surman, Solanke, Rico, Simpson, Surridge.

Referee: Paul Tierney (Lancashire).

Winning the league isn’t meant to be easy. Liverpool supporters are all too aware of this, into the 30th year of the search for their holy grail. Mind you, this time last week, it felt like the Reds were leading a procession, four wins from their first English championship since 1990. But one no-show against Watford later, plus a KO in the cup, and the mood-o-meter has switched from Party to Pensive. If they fail to beat Bournemouth this lunchtime, it won’t exactly be crisis time … not yet … but a few nerve-ends will start to jangle, twitch and yip, you can be darn sure of that.

As Liverpool have just found out, a lot can change in a couple of matches. But then spin it another way: if they see off relegation-haunted Bournemouth today, as they surely should, then pull off a recovery in the Champions League against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night, the entire picture will suddenly look a hell of a lot brighter. It doesn’t take much for the dial to shift either way. And what better opponent to shake off the post-break blues against than Bournemouth? Liverpool have won their last five games against Eddie Howe’s side to the aggregate tune of 17-0. They quite literally couldn’t Cherry-pick a better fixture in which to bounce back.

And yet Bournemouth won’t be without hope. They haven’t won in three, but came mighty close to beating Chelsea last weekend. They’ve also claimed a couple of big scalps this season: Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Manchester United at home. And they earned a 2-2 draw at Anfield back in April 2017, the same season they turned Klopp’s side over at Dean Court, coming from behind for a famous smash-and-grab 4-3 victory. It’s not totally been a one-sided relationship. Plus the fact Anfield may get a little nervous if things don’t go to plan for the home heroes in the early exchanges.

This could be the match that steadies the champions-elect after a brief, uncharacteristic wobble. Or it could go some way to saving Bournemouth’s Premier League skin, while planting more seeds of doubt in Liverpool’s collective mind, with big away games at Everton and Manchester City coming up. Plenty riding on this, then, and it’s going to be fun finding out how it all comes down. It’s on!

Kick off: 12.30pm GMT.