In basic terms they will be playing their second away game in 5 days, are 13th in the table and have their last game of the season 3 days later at home to a fragile Man U. Of course every team wants to win every game but surely if you said to Viera, the Palace Team and Palace fans 'if you can only win one of those two games, which would it be?' 99% of them would say the Man U game unless they had some irrational hatred of EFC and wanted us to go down.

I can't imagine there will be a throng of Palace fans travelling up to Liverpool to support them on a thursday night. And having beaten us comfortably twice this season there isn't any beef between the clubs from a Palace perspective .... that might have been different if we beat them in the Cup.

Some might say that Viera has a personal rivalry with Lampard from his playing days, but Lampard played under Viera in New York and they seemingly got along well. I'd also argue that Viera has more of a dislike for Man Utd as a club than Lampard as an individual. With Man U not having played for two weeks and possibly under the early influence of new manager Ten Haag they are likely to be a dangerous opponent. So if you are Patrick Viera do you go full strength last weekend and then again on Thursday and Sunday or do you make some changes.

As I say, Palace will set out to win the game as they are a solid professional team under Viera, but surely they won't be going all out to beat us like it means something and may even rotate a little to improve their chances of winning their final home match of the season.