Three Things – Fulham at Wembley, Championship Play-off Final
“The richest game in club football” is almost upon us. On Saturday 26th May – a date not without significance in Aston Villa’s history – we return to the national stadium for the first time since we beat Liverpool in that memorable FA Cup semi-final three years ago. I say the semi-final because I think it’s fair to say that although we won and were due back to play in the final against Arsenal, we spectacularly failed to turn up on that particular occasion.
Anyway, water under the bridge. Although it is more than a little crass to focus on the financial implications of this match, we find ourselves days from the biggest and most significant game of the past 36 years. A place in the Greed League is at stake, with the thick end of £200m ready and waiting to swell the club’s coffers over the next couple of seasons and banish Financial Fair Play concerns to the dustbin of history. Winner takes all, and the loser remains mired in the Championship, planning away days at Brentford and Wigan, rather than, er, Huddersfield or Bournemouth. Put that way, another season in the Championship suddenly doesn’t seem any less glamourous.
In all seriousness, we need to get promoted. Financially and in terms of our prestige, we need to get back to the top table and stabilise in the Premier League, before kicking on and getting back to challenging for European football again. We’ve already been left behind by former contemporaries such as Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea, so another year grafting Saturday/Tuesday over a 46-game season is not something we want in our future.
Standing in our way are Fulham, arguably the best side in the division behind Wolves, but tainted by play-off failure last season and by choking on the final day of this season, when a win at Small Heath – an away banker, surely? – would have seen them go up automatically by pipping Cardiff at the post. Instead, they collapsed to an acca-busting 3-1 defeat against one of the poorest teams in the division. I don’t think anyone would have begrudged them automatic promotion, but fail miserably they did, and now they’ve had to join us in doing it the hard way. As good as Fulham may be, I imagine they will be pretty comfortable having to play us rather than the one-dimensional Middlesbrough.
Historically, we are very evenly matched – in 68 previous encounters, Villa have won 23, as have Fulham, with 22 drawn. Since the year 2000, we’ve met 30 times, with Villa winning 11 to Fulham’s 8, with 11 drawn. Although the ‘Cottagers’ have won five of the last eight matches, and the last draw was back in 2013. History suggests a draw this time out (over the 90 minutes at least) while recent form suggests a victory for Fulham. What can we do to ensure that doesn’t happen?
