experience v youth.
Midlands v southerners.
Big club v small club.
Irresistible force v immovable object
Good looking manager v Jokanovic
A good excuse to get in pub earlier before the CL final
It's got the lot today
Match facts
Midlands v southerners.
Big club v small club.
Irresistible force v immovable object
Good looking manager v Jokanovic
A good excuse to get in pub earlier before the CL final
It's got the lot today
Match facts
- Fulham are featuring in their first ever play-off final, having previously lost in the semi-finals in 1988-89 (third-tier), 1997-98 (third-tier) and 2016-17 (second-tier), while Aston Villa have reached the final in their first ever play-off campaign.
- Steve Bruce is set to manage in his third play-off final - he has been promoted in both of his previous two, progressing on penalties in 2001-02 as Birmingham manager against Norwich and beating Sheffield Wednesday with Hull in 2015-16.
- Indeed, he's the third manager to manage in three play-off finals in the second tier, after Brian Little (three finals between 1991-92 and 1993-94) and Ian Holloway (2009-10, 2011-12 and 2012-13).
- Bruce has won four promotions to the top flight (2001-02, 2006-07, 2012-13 and 2015-16), a joint-record with Neil Warnock, who achieved his fourth this season with Cardiff.
- These sides both claimed a win apiece in their Championship meetings this season, with Villa winning 2-1 at Villa Park in October and Fulham winning 2-0 at Craven Cottage in February.
- The Cottagers are playing just their second match at Wembley - they lost their previous visit in the 1975 FA Cup final against West Ham.
- Fulham's gap of 15,279 days between playing their first and second matches at Wembley is the third longest in history, after Brentford (19,915 - November 1930 to June 1985) and Southend United (30,073 - December 1930 to April 2013).
- In Fulham's semi-final second leg against Derby, Ryan Sessegnon became the youngest scorer in the history of the second-tier play-offs (17y 360d). The youngest player to score in a second-tier play-off final is Julian Joachim (18y 253d), who scored for Leicester City against Swindon Town in May 1993.
- Only Matej Vydra (21) has scored more Championship goals than Lewis Grabban (20) this season - however, Grabban has played six Championship play-off games previously and failed to score in any, featuring in the 2015 final for Norwich and last season's final for Reading.
- Robert Snodgrass and Ahmed Elmohamady featured in the 2016 Championship play-off final for Steve Bruce's victorious Hull side - Snodgrass assisted Mohamed Diame's winning goal.
- The team scoring first in the Championship play-off final has gone on to win promotion on each of the past six occasions in which the final has not been goalless - the last time a team failed to win having scored first was Cardiff City in 2010 against Blackpool.
- Aston Villa have not faced a shot on target in any of their past three halves of football, since a 40th-minute Daniel Ayala header in the first leg of their play-off semi-final (140 minutes in total).
