Memories of Ian Brennan tonight

With the Clarets very much in need of some points, we are having the toughest of fixtures thrown at us. The last two on the road were at Man United and Chelsea which saw us win one point in total, and now it is Liverpool, a ground where we don't have the best of records.

I love these snippets you get on Sky Sports News that claim we haven't beaten them in a league game since 1974. It is true, but we've only played six times against them since in league fixtures with a couple of then drawn and the other four, the last four, all ending in defeat.

We haven't scored in any of those defeats either so the last Burnley player to score a league goal against them was Ray Hankin who scored on the Turf in a 1-1 draw. But the last Burnley player to net at Anfield was Ian Brennan who scored that sensational goal in 1974 to give us a 1-0 win and inflict the first Anfield defeat on Liverpool under the management of Bob Paisley.

But then was then and now is now and this, without doubt, is a difficult game, just as was the one we faced at Stamford Bridge a week and a half ago. This time, at least, no matter what happens we shouldn't have the home manager bleating for days on end over a decision that he feels might have gone against his team.

We raise our game against the bigger teams says George Boyd

We go into the game not having won any of our last six Premier League games which have yielded just two points. But it hasn't knocked the confidence of the players who will go into the game in a positive frame of mind.

George Boyd, whose last goal came in the 3-3 New Year's Day draw at Newcastle, said: "I think we've shown all season that we can raise our game against the big teams.

"We've gone to the top two and got results at Man City and Chelsea. We also drew early in the season against Man U and even at Old Trafford we battered them to be honest. So, we're full of confidence that we can go to these places, put in good performances and get points."

Boyd also pointed to the fitness levels at the club. Much has been said about his running ability but he added: "It's definitely an advantage that we're the fittest team in the league. As you go through the season, while some other teams may be tiring, we are getting stronger.

"I'm in no doubt that we will get stronger before the end of the season and that's going to have an impact on games."

Boyd will line up in what is expected to be an unchanged Burnley team. Sean Dyche has today confirmed that Matt Taylor is on the way back but not ready for tonight.

I expect us to line up: Tom Heaton, Kieran Trippier, Michael Keane, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, George Boyd, Scott Arfield, David Jones, Michael Kightly, Danny Ings, Ashley Barnes. Subs from: Matt Gilks, Steven Reid, Michael Duff, Stephen Ward, Ross Wallace, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Sam Vokes, Marvin Sordell.

When Liverpool came to the Turf on Boxing Day, they were tenth in the table with 22 points from 17 games. They beat us 1-0 but it was a fortunate win and I'm sure anyone watching would have suggested Burnley were worth at least a point if not all three.

But they won it with a second half Raheem Sterling goal to end a run of three Premier League games without a win. And they haven't looked back since.

They'd drawn the previous game at home against Arsenal, and including that and the Turf Moor win, they are now on an unbeaten run of eleven games, eight of which have been won.

From Boxing Day onwards, their return of 26 points is higher than any other club with only Arsenal and Stoke having reached the 20 points barrier (including games up to last weekend).

They go into tonight's game with three successive wins under their belts and they've come against Spurs, Southampton and most recently Man City at Anfield when they looked in exceptional form.

The Liverpool Echo is claiming they have a considerable number of players out injured, but when you look at the list there are not many of them who would be in the side were they fit. They've even got Steven Gerrard fit again although he's not expected to play.

Their team on Sunday for the win against City was: Simon Mignolet, Emre Can, Martin Skrtel, Dejan Lovren, Joe Allen, Jordan Henderson, Lazar Markovic, Alberto Moreno, Philippe Courtinho, Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana. Subs: Jordan Williams, Kolo Toure, Danny Ward, Fabio Borini, Daniel Sturridge, Rickie Lambert, Mario Balotelli.

Last Time We Were There

Our last visit to Anfield was certainly not one to savour. We'd lost our first two away games in the Premier League in 2008/09, going down 2-0 at Stoke and 3-0 at Chelsea. The third away game was at Liverpool and ended in a 4-0 defeat.

Yossi Benayoun helped himself to a hat trick, scoring their first, third and fourth goals with the second coming from Dirk Kuyt.

At the time, I wrote: "For most of the game we were found wanting in midfield, overrun at the back, unsteady in goal, and two speculative Martin Paterson efforts apart hardly threatened the Liverpool back line.

Debut for David Nugent

At Stoke we hadn't done too badly after going 2-0 behind; at Chelsea, where the home side were in superb form, we stayed in the game until stoppage time at the end of the first half, but here we were well beaten from the minute they opened the scoring.

Owen Coyle made no changes to the team beaten at Chelsea but included new loan signing David Nugent on the bench in place of Christian Kalvenes, leaving us without a solitary defensive substitute.

In soaring temperatures, certainly different from what it will be like tonight, we did ok for almost half an hour until Benayoun was just allowed to stride through us and slide the ball past Brian Jensen who was criticised, wrongly in my view, by Jonathan Pearce on Match of the Day.

But he was very much at fault with the second. Wade Elliott lost possession but when Benayoun got his shot away it went straight at the goalkeeper who parried it straight to Kuyt who scored although television evidence did show he was marginally offside.

That balanced out in the second half when Benayoun had a perfectly good goal disallowed for offside, but he wasn't to be denied and scored twice more to complete his hat trick, the last running into his path off referee Lee Mason.

They hit the post; Jensen made a couple of saves, and frankly this one could have been much worse than the 4-0 scoreline at the final whistle.

The teams were;

Liverpool: Pepe Reina, Glen Johnson (Philipp Degen 64), Jamie Carragher, Martin Skrtel, Emiliano Insua, Steven Gerrard, Lucas Leiva, Dirk Kuyt (Andriy Voronin 69), Yossi Benayoun, Albert Riera, Fernando Torres (David Ngog 75). Subs not used: Diego Cavalieri, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Andrea Dossena, Jay Spearing.

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Tyrone Mears, Clarke Carlisle, Andre Bikey, Steven Jordan, Graham Alexander (Joey Gudjonsson 75), Steven Fletcher, Wade Elliott, Chris McCann, Robbie Blake (Chris Eagles 58), Martin Paterson (David Nugent 70). Subs not used: Diego Penny, Kevin McDonald, Fernando Guerrero, Steven Thompson.

Previous Games against Liverpool

Click HERE to see all previous results against Liverpool