London –

The game will be secondary when Liverpool plays Crystal Palace on Saturday.

With around minutes remaining the fourth official will hold up his board with the No. 8 showing and Steven Gerrard will say an emotional farewell to the club he has served so well since making his debut in 1998.

Anfield will rise as one to applaud a true Liverpool great. Teammates and opponents will shake his hand as he walks off.

Gerrard will pay his own tribute to the Liverpool fans who love him as much as he loves them. Grown men will not be embarrassed as they wipe a tear from their eye.

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers and, no doubt, Crystal Palace's Alan Pardew will add a private word of appreciation as Gerrard takes his place on the bench.

Tickets with a face value of £50 are being sold on the black market for £2,000. It will be one of those "I was there" moments and if you can afford it, money is no object to see Gerrard's final appearance at Anfield.

After next weekend's match at Stoke, Gerrard, 35 at the end of the month, is off to join the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer. The midfielder would not be a regular starter next season and few would begrudge him the chance of a couple of lucrative years in California before returning, he hopes, to work for Liverpool in some capacity.

It remains a constant frustration for Gerrard that he never led Liverpool to the Premier League title. He said: "A career is always full of high and lows, the biggest regret is not having a Premier League winner's medal."

If this was ever going to happen it would have been last year, but a slip by the Liverpool captain in a crucial game against Chelsea enabled the Blues to score and effectively handed Manchester City the title.

But as he prepares to head west, Gerrard can reflect on a career that saw him win the Champions League, the UEFA Cup, the F.A. Cup (twice) and the League Cup (three times) plus 114 England caps which puts him third on the all-time appearances list. He is the only player to have scored a goal in the finals of the Champions League, the UEFA Cup, the F.A. Cup and the League Cup.

Gerrard had opportunities to join Chelsea, where his title dream would have become reality, but he decided to remain with his only club. He deserves to be remembered not for his slip against Chelsea a year ago, but as an inspirational captain and dominant midfielder that both club and country will find difficult to replace.

I HAVE NEVER understood why the Europa League is perceived as more of a punishment than a reward in England. It is an opportunity for clubs who will probably never be able to break in to the top four, which is becoming the private domain of Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United, to experience high quality European football.

The reason given is that playing Thursday and Sunday is disruptive, though why this should be so much worse than playing Wednesday and Saturday in the Champions League is baffling. Teams have the same recovery time and even one day extra to prepare for the Europa League.

Another theory put forward is the distance traveling to far-flung venues in Eastern Europe affects players. A recent survey showed in the last 10 seasons of Europa League/UEFA Cup football English teams suffered an average fall of 2.3 league positions from qualifying for the Europa League, compared to the seasons when they competed in it.

On the other hand, the study said Sunday fixtures in the aftermath of Thursday commitments show only a fractional fall from 1.43 points per game to 1.41 points for the 33 English clubs involved in Europa/UEFA competitions, so any significant loss of points came elsewhere.

Premier League teams tend to regard the competition like a European League Cup, fielding scratch sides. Andre Villas-Boas, the former Chelsea and Spurs manager now at Zenit St. Petersburg, is baffled by the English insularity. He said: "The profile of the competition is raised in other countries, but not England. I don't understand it. I respect the competition. I certainly think it is viewed as a punishment in England and I cannot understand why. It is a traditional trophy."

Liverpool seems nailed on for one Europa League place. If Aston Villa beat Arsenal in the F.A. Cup final, they will qualify meaning only one more spot available via the league; should the Gunners win then sides finishing sixth and seventh will enter the poisoned chalice.

Tottenham, Southampton and Swansea are the contenders, the Welsh club appearing the keenest of the trio to take part. Swansea manager Garry Monk said: "People talk about how it can affect your league form, but we'll have to deal with it if we're in there."

There will almost certainly be a place for West Ham courtesy of the Fair Play League and already the jokes have started that they will pick up yellow and red cards in their final two games to ensure they do not qualify.

A European place may be Sam Allardyce's parting gift to the Hammers, who are set to discuss his future later this month. He said: "I am not going to look at it in that way, whether we are going to get any less cautions or more than Everton [on Saturday]. We just want to go out and play them to beat them, that's the only thing we will be looking at."

THERE ARE SOME who would query the Irishness of Aston Villa's Jack Grealish, but it would be hard to find anyone who doubts the midfielder is a player of immense potential.

Born in Solihull, a goal kick from Villa Park, Grealish qualifies for Ireland because he has three grandparents from the Republic. He has played for the Irish Under-17, Under-18 and Under-21 teams, though has yet to declare for either England or Ireland at senior level.

This week the 19-year-old turned down the opportunity to be included in Ireland's squad for the June friendly against England and the Euro 2016 qualifier against Scotland. Whoever Grealish chooses, it will be a huge call for the player though inevitably his delay in announcing his decision is frustrating many in Ireland.

Christopher Davies was a longtime Premier League correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph.