Map It Out: Looking to April's Fixtures

5th April: West Ham (Away)

Upton Park will soon be vacant, but West Ham vs. Liverpool matches at Upton Park have always been decent watches.

Last year this fixture proved to be edgy and competitive even more so than usual. The one thing you're promised playing West Ham is that they never lay down and take defeat kindly. They're always in your face and never give up.

I hope this is the case, as although I want Liverpool to win every match, I want to see a decent match too. And although the style of football has changed slightly with the appointment of Sam Allardyce, the mentality and guile of West Ham hasn't. It'll be a match likely to feature Anfield-old boy Andy Carroll, who made his loan move permanent after the end of the season.

12th April: Man City (Home)

With City spending even more money on Alvaro Negredo and Jesus Navas, as well as Fernandinho, they're expected to have a decent year, if not be one of the favorites for the title.

However, the Citizens have had a turbulent pre-season, just like their cross-town rivals have, and it is obvious it may take them time to gel as a unit. Hopefully we can use this to our advantage, but I would think by March the team will have gelled well by then, just like us last year.

19th April: Norwich (Away)

For the past 2 seasons, we've had the beating of Norwich, and not much more can be said.

But most of that came down to the class (At least on the pitch) of Luis Suarez. Will our dominance continue after Luis is all but gone, and they've signed Gary Hooper and Ricky Van Woolfswinkel, who are decent strikers in their own right?

It makes it easier to think we'll have Aspas and Sturridge if we lose Luis, but who's to say Luis won't do even better away from Anfield than he did in a Liverpool shirt? Maybe it's Arsenal that Norwich have to worry about now.

26th April: Chelsea (Home)

Our home matches against Chelsea have always been interesting. A 4-1 loss, a 4-1 win, a couple wins that took us to European finals...

I expect this to be no different, especially after we have one of Mourinho's most trusted disciples in our hot seat.

We'll see what happens. As I said in a previous article, we only beat Mourinho's Chelsea a few times, but this is a different team to back then. The only players Mourinho had in his team at first, if I remember correctly, are Lampard and Terry. Will that change things?