Premier League predictions: Lawro v The Coral frontman James Skelly

BBC Sport's football expert Mark Lawrenson is pitting his wits against a different guest each week this season.

Lawro's opponent for the midweek Premier League fixtures is The Coral frontman James Skelly.

After a five-year break the Merseyside band have a new album coming out and and are about to start a UK Tour.

Rehearsals before they hit the road meant Liverpool fan Skelly had to miss a trip to Wembley on Sunday to watch the Capital One Cup final.

"I had a ticket but it was the last day I had to sort everything," Skelly told BBC Sport. "So I had to watch on telly instead."

Skelly says Robbie Fowler is his favourite Liverpool player of all time - "I always preferred the players who did not have the pace but have got it upstairs. What a finisher Fowler was - he scored a load of goals and he had a bit of devil in him as well"

Liverpool's form has been inconsistent since Jurgen Klopp took charge in October but Skelly believes he will get things right.

He added: "I like Klopp a lot. He is a class manager, everyone knows that.

"It is going to take him a bit of time because he has an imbalanced squad but if we had our best team out all the time, we would probably be challenging for a top-four place now.

"It is really refreshing to hear him talk and he is passionate too. I sometimes sit right behind him in the main stand at Anfield, and I just end up watching him if the game is rubbish."

Skelly's best moment as a Liverpool fan was the 2005 Champions League final when they came back from 3-0 down at half-time to beat AC Milan.

"It has to be Istanbul," he explained. "Me and my mate tried to leave at half-time but we were locked in.

"Instead we just thought we would eat a load of choc-ices and eat the pain away but as we celebrated goal after goal we lost the choc-ices and ended up waving the sticks in the air. It would have made a great choc-ice advert actually."

Premier League predictions
Week 28	Result	Lawro	James
TUESDAY
Aston Villa v Everton	1-3	0-2	0-3
Bournemouth v Southampton	2-0	2-1	1-2
Leicester v West Brom	2-2	1-1	3-1
Norwich v Chelsea	1-2	0-2	0-2
Sunderland v Crystal Palace	2-2	2-1	1-1
WEDNESDAY
Arsenal v Swansea	1-2	2-0	2-0
Stoke v Newcastle	1-0	2-0	1-1
West Ham v Tottenham	1-0	1-1	1-2
Liverpool v Man City	3-0	1-1	3-2
Man Utd v Watford	1-0	1-2	2-2

Our scoring system has changed this season and a correct result (picking a win, draw or defeat) is now worth 10 points. The exact score earns 40 points.

Last week, Lawro got five correct results from eight Premier League games, with no perfect scores. He also incorrectly backed Liverpool to win the Capital One Cup

His score of 50 points saw him beat Nobby Butcher - aka Sacha Baron Cohen, who picked two correct results but no perfect scores for a total of 20.

Lawro and Nobby can still pick up extra points for their predictions for the Premier League games which were postponed at the weekend because of the Capital One Cup final - Liverpool v Everton and Newcastle v Man City.

Make your own predictions now, compare them to Lawro and other fans and try to take your team to the top of the leaderboard by playing the BBC Sport Predictor game.

Total scores after week 27
Lawro	1,860
Guests	1,330

LAWRO'S PREDICTIONS

All kick-offs 19:45 GMT unless otherwise stated

TUESDAY

Aston Villa 1-3 Everton

Lawro's prediction: 0-2

James's prediction: I think Everton are going to smash them. 0-3

Match report

Bournemouth 2-0 Southampton

Lawro's prediction: 2-1

James's prediction: 1-2

Match report

Leicester 2-2 West Brom

Lawro's prediction: 1-1

James's prediction: 3-1

Match report

Norwich 1-2 Chelsea

Lawro's prediction: 0-2

James's prediction: 0-2

Match report

Sunderland 2-2 Crystal Palace

Lawro's prediction: 2-1

James's prediction: 1-1

Match report

WEDNESDAY

Arsenal 1-2 Swansea

Lawro's prediction: 2-0

James's prediction: 2-0

Match report

Stoke 1-0 Newcastle

Lawro's prediction: 2-0

James's prediction: 1-1

Match report

West Ham 1-0 Tottenham

Lawro's prediction: 1-1

James's prediction: I want West Ham to win but Spurs are on a roll. 1-2

Match report

Liverpool 3-0 Man City

Lawro's prediction: 1-1

James's prediction: I said before Sunday that whoever wins the League Cup will lose this game, and I obviously hope that is the case now. I could never back against Liverpool anyway though. 3-2

Match report

Man Utd 1-0 Watford

Lawro's prediction: 1-2

James's prediction: United are having a difficult time but Liverpool fans are not really in a position to be laughing at anyone at the moment. At least we are used to being pretty rubbish, while it is a whole new thing for their supporters.

Also, we can see there is a clear plan for us under Klopp now - things are a lot more uncertain for United but, if they get Jose Mourinho as their next manager, then they will have a couple of decent seasons. 2-2

Match report

Lawro was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan.

Lawro v Guests
P27	W17	D5	L5

SCORE	GUEST LEADERBOARD
110	Sam Tomkins, SAM Super Computer
100	Wealdstone Raider
90	Ice Cube & Kevin Hart, Amir Khan
70	Guy Mowbray, Osi Umenyiora
69	Lawro (average after 27 weeks)
60	Stuart Broad, Tim Burgess, Ed Skrein
50	Mark Radcliffe, Jack Whitehall, Felix White
40	Neville, Mumford & Sons, Michael B Jordan & Tony Bellew
30	Darren Campbell, Luol Deng, Blake Harrison & Daniel Mays, Mark Webber, Steve Wilson
20	Nobby Butcher*, Graeme Swann
10	Elis James, Paul Heaton, Kelly Jones

* Does not include score for postponed games

Lawro's best score: 160 points (week 19 v Guy Mowbray)

Lawro's worst score: 20 points (week one v Graeme Swann & week 23 v Ice Cube and Kevin Hart)

+/- DENOTE POSITION DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LAWRO'S TABLE AND REAL TABLE
POS	TEAM	P	W	D	L	PTS	+/-
1.	Arsenal	27	19	8	0	65	+2
2.	Man City	26	20	5	1	65	+2
3.	Chelsea	27	18	7	2	61	+8
4.	Liverpool	26	15	11	0	56	+5
5.	Southampton	27	15	3	9	48	+2
6.	West Brom	27	14	6	7	48	+7
7.	Man Utd	27	12	11	4	47	-2
8.	Tottenham	27	13	8	6	47	-6
9.	Crystal Palace	27	11	7	9	40	+5
10.	Everton	26	9	7	10	34	+2
11.	Newcastle	26	8	8	10	32	+7
12.	Norwich	27	10	2	15	32	+5
13.	Stoke	27	7	6	14	27	-5
14.	Bournemouth	27	7	5	15	26	+1
15.	Leicester	27	5	9	13	24	-14
16.	Swansea	27	4	12	11	24	0
17.	Sunderland	27	5	7	15	22	+2
18.	West Ham	27	4	6	17	18	-12
19.	Watford	27	2	7	18	13	-9
20.	Aston Villa	27	1	3	23	6	0