Palace ''have belief'' as relegation nears | OneFootball

Crystal Palace manager Leif Smerud says his team "have belief" ahead of tonight's clash with top-of-the-table Chelsea while knowing that two defeats out of their final four games will condemn them to the Championship regardless of other results.

It has been a difficult season for the Eagles since their promotion last season but at times it looked like they could potentially stage an upset. Indeed, Palace have three more points than Bristol City finished their campaign with last year while still having four games left to play.

Palace enjoyed a 3-1 win over Aston Villa last month and restricted Chelsea to a narrow 1-0 win when the two teams played in the FA Cup.

However, when the two sides faced each other at the start of the season, it was a very different story with Chelsea romping to a 7-0 win against a Palace side then managed by Laura Kaminski.

Staying up for Palace now would be a herculean task and likely need them to get positive results from their final four games while hoping either Aston Villa or Leicester City lose as many games as possible.

“It's difficult. Everyone can read the table," Smerud said about his team's chances.

"What I know is it's impossible if we don't perform. That's our main challenge: to get our performances going. We cannot control how far that will get us.

"We need help, of course, but we need to be optimistic and focus on the things we actually can do something about. Then, it's an exciting week with a couple of games, and we're ready to go after a break now.

"We have belief. We are having that, and the positivity from [the recent win over Aston] Villa we can build on, but of course in this league you play really good teams like Arsenal and like Chelsea, top international teams performing in Champions League in the final stages, so I think you have to be realistic as well.

"But no one can take away that we did some good performances, and we look forward to doing that again."

Palace will be facing a wounded Chelsea who were thumped 4-1 by Barcelona in the Champions League at the weekend. Smerud and his team will be hoping that heads have dropped and that any potential fatigue may play into their hands as they hope to grind out an unlikely, but necessary, result.