The Blues know victory would virtually seal an instant return to the Premier League, but that a draw or defeat would leave them under pressure to beat mid-table QPR in Saturday’s home finale in order to guarantee second spot.
Southampton, unbeaten in 17 league games and coming off the back of pushing Man City all the way in an FA Cup semi-final over the weekend, know that anything but a win and they can start preparing for the play-offs.
“We know that it’s going to be a tough test,” said Greaves. “You watched them the other day against Man City – they went toe-to-toe with them and it looked like an evenly matched game.
“We’ve been good at home, so if it comes to that, it comes to that. But hopefully we can win on Tuesday night and maybe make it a little bit more easy for ourselves.
“It’s probably going to be gung ho at times in terms of both teams going for the win. But we know we’re going to have to be good with our defensive discipline and we’re going to have to execute a game plan against a good team.
“I think this season we’ve been really good against the more footballing teams away from home with the way that we can press and the way that we can play. We’ve played against Coventry twice and didn’t concede against them, so hopefully we can use that as an example. Maybe this game will suit us, maybe it won’t. We’ll have to see.
“They’ve got a lot of good players. But so do we. It’s going to be a really exciting game.”