3. Youth vs Experience?
On the evidence of the season as a whole, Fulham are better than Aston Villa. We both had poor starts to the campaign, but over the last 30 games, Fulham were THE form team in the division – Fulham’s record was W21 D6 L3 compared with Villa’s W17 D6 L7.
But form counts for nothing in what is effectively a one-off cup game, and there is surely a case to be made for Fulham’s stutter at the send of the season (losing to Small Heath and the first leg of the play-off with Derby), as well as the relative experience of the two teams (and their managers).
Steve Bruce wrote the book on promotion, and there is a particularly long chapter on promotion via the play-offs. Jokanovic? Not so much. And let’s not forget they bottled it in the play-offs last season and choked on the final day of this. He did achieve promotion with Watford back in April 2015 but had only taken over the previous October and was gone before the new season had started.
Our squad has a number of experienced international footballers, players who have graced the biggest tournaments in football, and one man in particular has won pretty much everything at domestic level.
John Terry, James Chester, Ahmed Elmohamady, Glenn Whelan and Mile Jedinak (and to a lesser extent, Alan Hutton and Robert Snodgrass) have clocked up massive experience internationally and at Premier League level, but when I look at the Fulham squad, I see plenty of youth, promise and quality, but not a great deal of knowhow and nous. Of course, every young team has to start somewhere, but on the biggest stage, I can’t help feeling our experience might be the difference.
Whatever happens on Saturday, we’ve come a long, long way from the dark days of 2016. Although I am pessimistic by nature, I have felt all along that we will finish the job this season – I just think we have got this. The togetherness of the squad, against a backdrop of horrific personal turmoil for Steve Bruce, has shone through as the stakes have risen. One last effort is required on Saturday to get us over the line, and I am sure we will do it. Of course, I will be devastated if we lose and fall at the final hurdle. But all I ask for – all any of us asks for – is for the lads to leave it out there on the Wembley pitch.
I can take a defeat if that is what the fates decide, but what I can’t take (and I’m sure I am not alone) is going down with a whimper. I don’t want to see a QPR or Norwich performance, where we were poor from the off and never looked like getting anything from the game. Please boys, give us 100% commitment and effort. Do this for yourselves. Do it for Brucie. Return this national institution to its rightful place.
The time has come for the lion to roar again.
