Going to away games is generally a reasonably pleasant experience, but considerably less so if the destination is Selhurst Park.

In return for my £32 I had the pleasure of sitting five yards away from an iron girder which blocked out a large section of midfield while the position of the away section ensured that most of the touchline and the far corner of our side of the ground might well have been populated by tap dancing unicorns for all I was able to discern.

I'm well aware that there were many others who had an even worse view than I did, and I'm sure that, like mine, their tickets weren't sold as 'impaired view' by Crystal Palace FC who seem happy to pocket the income from away fans without doing anything to improve their experience.

I suppose I should mention that the ancient wooden seats have now been replaced by plastic models, although in terms of an overall improvement that's roughly equivalent to putting earrings on a pig.

Unfortunately the game was just as depressing as our surroundings and eventually it was won by the one moment of quality of the entire afternoon. While City could have had a first half penalty I would say in Michael Oliver's defence that he had allowed some pretty robust challenges by both sides throughout and the barge on Matt Jarvis wasn't out of keeping with that level of physicality.

City didn't really deserve much from the game having produced plenty of effort but precious little in the way of creativity. While the Canaries had good spells of possession their final ball was invariably poor and the shackling of Dieumerci Mbokani by Damien Delaney and Scott Dann rendered Steven Naismith much less effective than the previous week in the win over Newcastle.

Despite having a fair amount of possession around the Palace box City simply didn't make Wayne Hennessey, who'd looked shaky early on, work hard enough as he indulged in some gentle catching practice from errant crosses, and their shooting from distance was uniformly wayward.

Let's face it, Selhurst Park is pretty much on a par with Craven Cottage as a bogey ground for City but with Newcastle and Sunderland losing over the weekend the mood amongst Canaries fans was much more upbeat by Sunday evening.

I think we all knew deep down that today was always going to be just as vital as the Newcastle game, and whilst it would have been nice to go into it with more than a four point gap I would still much rather be in City's position than Sunderland's.

It will be interesting to see how Sam Allardyce's side approaches the game. In his interviews this week he's sounded rather downbeat and seems to be keen to state that avoiding defeat is his priority today. Perhaps it's a double bluff and Sunderland will look to attack but I think it's much more likely that they'll sit back and try to catch City on the break.

That's a tactic that other sides have used successfully at Carrow Road this season and Sunderland have a real threat in Jermaine Defoe, but they still look unconvincing defensively, particularly at full-back.

But, let's not worry too much about the opposition. Today is about how much desire City show, because if the players, and the crowd, bring their A game today I don't think that Sunderland will be able to handle it. The atmosphere against Newcastle was superb and we need to match or even better it.

Everything is set up for City to take a huge step towards safety but Sunderland will scrap for their lives and we need to make sure that the players get every ounce of support that we can provide. Let's make the difference today.