Elma

That Palace game is at Wembley. 😉

He's at Fulham v Chelsea on Sunday. We've got: Referee: Jarred Gillett. Assistants: Lee Betts, Sian Massey-Ellis. Fourth official: Farai Hallam. VAR: Michael Salisbury. Assistant VAR: Derek Eaton.

Draw at Villa and win the home games and Villa have to also win all their remaining games to overtake us, due to the goal difference.

Beaten them three times this season so far with a combined score of 5-0. Could do it…need to get something on Saturday first.

Shows what confidence and a run in the team can do. Looks ahead of Gordon now who's a bit rusty. Undroppable at the minute but a lovely problem to have. One thing I would do - if Gordon comes on for Murphy again I wouldn't switch Barnes over.

Five in a row. 1-0 2-1 3-0 4-1 5-0 6-1 on Saturday?

Hopefully no injuries. Couple of knocks there but nothing obvious at the moment.

He's got to say 70/30 cross in the post match.

Interestingly, Kevin Day was on Talksport earlier talking about Palace and their form. Had similar comments to us about our recent form, saying they are getting results but not playing particularly well. Said they had a purple patch after Xmas and their 2-0 win at Fulham in late February was as complete a Palace performance he's seen. They followed that up by beating Villa 4-1. Apparently the three week enforced break they had due to tonight's game being moved (with us being in the cup final) broke their rythym, and they've not been as fluid since.

Pope and Murphy about to be interviewed on TalkSport (12:30 on Weds).

Maybe they were just doing a dry run for next season?

If Villa beat us they'll be on 57 with five games left, so it would be four wins out of five (i.e. losing to Man City but beating Fulham, Bournemouth, Spurs and Man U would take them to 69).

If we win our four home games and avoid defeat to Villa, that's 69. Villa would need to win all of their remaining games, including at Man City, to get to 70. Chelsea aren't getting to 70. They'd need to win their other five games (excluding the game against us) to reach 70, and they've got Liverpool at home yet and Forest away last day. I suspect they may even drop points this weekend at Fulham who will respond to last night. Big ask, but a win tomorrow and a draw on Saturday (or the other way round) and the odds are hugely stacked in our favour.

Keegan used to do the same. Soon as the players went in after the warm up he'd have them pile water onto the pitch before home games, and then we'd come out expecting it and the opposition would be slipping all over for 10-15 mins. Interesting if we're targeting specific areas of the pitch these days.

The first two are playing under good managers. I'll bang this drum till the day I die. The stats say managers only have a nominal impact on results and improved results more closely correlate with spend (both on transfer fees and wages). However, the research on this focusses on the time after a manager has been appointed and the new manager bounce. Of course spend is very important, but good coaches can have a huge impact on results, and simultaneously maximise the impact and therefore value of individual players within the squad. It's also important that managers have a significant say in who comes in. I had steam coming out of my ears watching Ashley buying cheap-ish players and then throwing them at the (generally) inept managers who were either free or cheap (and in Graham Carr's address book) when our top job became vacant.