Paulinho's Mersey mission

Paulinho admits he's banished the memory of our home match against Liverpool in December.

Few will need reminding - not least the Brazilian international - of the events at the Lane that day as Liverpool ran out 5-0 winners.

Luis Suarez opened the scoring, we lost Sandro to injury and it was 2-0 when Paulinho received a straight red card just after the hour. The Reds ran in three goals in the final 15 minutes.

Liverpool have gone from strength to strength since then and Wednesday’s 2-1 win against Sunderland sees them second in the Premier League, just a point behind Chelsea with seven games remaining.

They’ve won 11 of their last 12 at Anfield but Paulinho is determined to come home from Merseyside with a positive result.

“This is a good game for us after the result against Southampton and now we have the chance to do well against Liverpool,” said Paulinho, who didn’t want to dwell on December’s meeting.

“I didn’t think it was a red card at the time. I’ve forgotten about it, we didn’t play well, we lost. Now we have another chance.

“We have to forget about that game. We have a chance to go there, play well and hopefully come back with a good result. We know it will be difficult, but we have a chance.

“We have seven games to go, we’re trying to finish as high as possible and we have to try to win this game.”