Former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy says Crystal Palace do not want to be playing catch up again this season.
The Eagles are currently just outside the relegation zone with one point from their first two matches of the new Premier League campaign, having drawn 0-0 with Everton on the opening weekend before losing out 1-0 against Sheffield United yesterday (Sunday).
And Murphy says that with a trip to face Manchester United at Old Trafford on the horizon this weekend, the Eagles need to be careful.
However, he is backing his former manager Roy Hodgson to get Palace going, adding that Palace should be boosted in the coming weeks by the return to fitness of some key players.
"I am not concerned, because I think at home they will have enough," Murphy said, speaking as a pundit on BBC programme Match of the Day 2 after Palace's defeat at Sheffield United.
"Wilfried Zaha will get fitter and sharper, he didn’t look quite at it [against Sheffield United]. [Andros] Townsend will get better and they have got [Mamadou] Sakho and [James] Tomkins to come back, so I think they will be fine.
"But they have got a tough one next week, they go to [Manchester] United and the problem is if you start badly and lose a bit of confidence, all of a sudden the fans can turn and they have to be careful, because they don’t want to start like they did last season and be playing catch up."
But Murphy says that Palace will have to do better than they did at Bramall Lane, where he described the Eagles' performance as uncharacteristic for Hodgson's men.
"It was very tactically unaware from Palace, very unlike Roy and his team," he said.
"They didn’t commit men forward, they didn’t get back in the game, but Sheffield United deserve all the credit in the world."
