Crystal Palace do not just follow Chelsea in the Premier League alphabet, they also seem to come after their fellow Londoners in Liverpool’s fixture list.
It is both a coincidence and a cruel quirk.
Six months ago, they were the games that changed Liverpool’s destiny and destroyed their dream. Now, once again, they play Palace after losing to Chelsea.
Two weeks ago, Liverpool failed to exorcise the ghosts of Steven Gerrard’s slip and their April defeat at Anfield as Jose Mourinho again outwitted Brendan Rodgers.
On Sunday comes a fixture that, if possible, contains still more painful memories.
Their May meeting at Selhurst Park was an extraordinary game, one that – should Liverpool’s wait for a league title last 24 more years – will be cited, lamented and remembered.
Yet it had begun so well with Liverpool having surged into a commanding lead.
The stage looked set for Liverpool and Manchester City to enter the final day of the season on the same points.
Manuel Pellegrini’s men had much the superior goal difference but with Liverpool three goals up at Selhurst Park, the Merseysiders were chipping away at it.
It prompted thoughts of how many they could score and their fans chanted “attack, attack, attack”.
The problem was that they could not defend, defend, defend.
Two years after playing non-league football, Dwight Gayle had a major say in the Premier League title race.
The Palace substitute scored twice, his team three times and Liverpool’s three-point haul was reduced to an insufficient one.
It was a spectacular capitulation, a colossal failure of nerve and it created indelible images.
There was Kolo Toure trying to comfort a crying Luis Suarez, who had started that day being named footballer of the year but ended it inconsolable.
The man who seemed to care so much only had one more game to play in his Liverpool career before he was sold to Barcelona.
The Palace game was the last time Suarez and Daniel Sturridge struck in the same match.
Now Liverpool’s other potent striker is sidelined again, ruled out until 2015 when it had appeared that he could make his comeback at Selhurst Park.
Their third scorer in May, Joe Allen, is not certain to start.
Liverpool moved to the brink of the 100-goal milestone at Selhurst Park last season. Now they are not even on course to score 50.
The only form of continuity has come at the other end.
After the collapse at Palace, a watching Jamie Carragher was scathing about the back four and castigated his former colleagues.
It has not improved. Even as Liverpool are unrecognisable in attack, they are all too familiar in defence.
The one thing they have going for them is that Palace have also declined.
Tony Pulis was named the division’s manager of the year for keeping Palace up last season – the overall award went Rodgers’ way – but Neil Warnock’s team have taken a solitary point from their past five games.
The focus, though, will be on Liverpool and this time there will be no choruses of “we’re going to win the league”.
They did not, and they will not.
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