A very important game for Saints, win it and the season will seem a lot more rosier, but lose it and it will ring alarm bells with so many tough games coming up thick and fast.
An old adage in football says that a good team does not become a bad team overnight and that is very much what Saints fans should remember as their team heads towards South London.
A few weeks ago and everything looked rosy, four wins and two draws saw Saints near the top of the current form table and things looked set for a challenge for the top five.
Then came back to back defeats to Stoke & Manchester City in the League and a draw against Villa, however such is the closeness of the Premier League table at present, even a late winner last weekend would have seen us in 7th.
So we go to Palace who themselves are 6th knowing that if we win we will jump above them, however that will be easier said than done in that we are not a side in confident mood at present.
But all sides suffer this from time to time and sometimes it is not the obvious that sparks a revival and hopefully the equaliser against Villa may be that catalyst, the fact is in the League we have not played badly, but we have been blighted by lapses in concentration and individual error and that has let us down badly.
When we keep it tight we can beat anyone in this division, but too often this season we have not kept it tight especially at Manchester City which is after all our only away defeat.
So going to Palace Ronald Koeman's job will be to get the team playing again with confidence, but more importantly cutting out these lapses, if he and indeed we as a team can do that then we have nothing to fear.
The first thing is to get team selection right, at times this season perhaps Koeman has got it wrong, perhaps having too much choice has not helped him, but he needs to be ruthless on this occasion.
The goalkeeper picks himself at present and hopefully the return of Fraser Forster to training will spur him on a little.
The back four should be Soares, Fonte, Van Dijk, Bertrand, no doubts there and that has cost us dearly this season when Soares has been dropped for Yoshida.
In midfield Wanyama and Romeu anchoring it, the Kenyan is the best we have on his day and Romeu has shown he deserves more of a crack than he has got.
In front of them Steven Davis, he has been our most consistent player this season, James Ward Prowse has had his chance to grab games by the scruff of the neck but hasn't done so.
Wide Tadic and Mane, both have to protect their full backs though a little more.
Up front Pelle.
That is just about the strongest team we can put out at present taking into account injury and form.
The bench will also be key, the six outfield players should be Caulker, Long, Juanmi, Ward Prowse, Clasie & Targett, that gives two players for each area of the pitch & covers both tactical changes and also those that could be caused by injury.
This bench perhaps shows us how strong we are as a squad and that we should not fear going to Palace but relish it, we have the players on their day to beat any team in this league and certainly the options to beat Palace.
So it will be about three things on Saturday, first get the selection right, second cut out te lapses and errors and then thirdly play with confidence, if we do all of those three things then we are capable of taking all three points and jumping ourselves up a place or two in the league.
Once again we have a full complement of support up at Selhurst Park and as ever the away support will get behind the team, it needs to do that and stay behind it, we have gone behind on more than one occasion this season away from home, but the Saints travelling support stayed with them and we have come back to earn points.