Wednesday Fulham Stuff (23/05/18)...

[WhiteJC]

Aston Villa's Robert Snodgrass makes this honest play-off final admission

The AVFC winger is gearing up for the clash with Fulham on at Wembley

Robert Snodgrass has warned that the play-off final is a "second chance" for Aston Villa after they messed up their main objective. A

The Scot stopped short of saying the 46-game season was a failure because the claret and blues can forget about missing out on automatic promotion if they see off Fulham at Wembley on Saturday.

But ahead of the national stadium encounter, Snodgrass admitted that finishing in the top two was always the aim and that Vilal are now playing catch-up.

"It's very rare you get a second chance to get to your final destination," he said.

"We fell short in the automatic places, we know that.

"Now everybody wants to be on the good end, the club have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get the club back.

"There's no room for error."

The winger is desperate for play-off joy and knows that good times could follow.

But all thoughts of his own future have been put on hold until after this weekend.

"When I signed here - and I can only speak for me - I never signed thinking of myself, I thought 'I'm coming here to be part of the team, drive it forwards and try and get to the play-offs, I'd love it to be automatic'... that's what was in my head," he said.

"I was mentally prepared for the play-offs, don't forget we were 18th when I joined.

"I remember looking at that and saying 'we have to kick on' and we did.

"We played Brentford then went on a seven/eight game winning streak, it's been ups and down.

"It feels like I've had three seasons in one. With West Ham, then coming here then getting to the play-offs. We know it's going to be hard, but if you want results, you've got to beat the best.

"We have to beat Fulham who've been one of the best teams in the division.

"I'm talking about all season, even taking Wolves and Cardiff into account and they went up.

"Everybody watching Fulham would probably agree. You have to take your hat off to them, the team that just falls short doesn't always make it in the play-offs but they had a great win in the semi-finals.

"We're happy with ourselves but we know we have a very difficult game ahead."

Snodgrass has a burning desire to succeed.

Although he wasn't at his creative best in the semi-final win over Middlesbrough, he sacrificed getting on the ball and playing for a more dogged and determined defensive display.

"It was a difficult game against Boro, a real ride of emotions," he said.

"The fear of losing that drives you forwards.

"None of the lads want to lose.

"You saw that never say die attitude and we will need that again."



https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villas-robert-snodgrass-makes-14690144

[WhiteJC]

 
'I saw absolutely nothing for us to worry about' - what the Fulham fans are saying about Aston Villa ahead of the Championship play-off final

This is what the Fulham faithful have been saying ahead of the game

Aston Villa and Fulham have both sold out of their ticket allocations for the weekend's huge play-off final at Wembley.

The time for talking is nearly over and all that's left is for both clubs to try and do the business on the pitch.

Fans of Fulham have been busy having their say on the game over at 'Friends of Fulham' - here's a flavour of their thoughts.

Milo: Villa's main threat is in midfield. Grealish is some player - think a cross between Johansen and Cairney. Snodgrass didn't look too special over the two legs but i know he's highly rated by their fans. Jedinak is solid. In a sense, their midfield closely mirrors the structure of ours with two creatives and a holding midfielder.

Defence is solid with Chester (highly rated) and Terry. However surely the latter means they will struggle with our pace.

Finally a lot of hard work by their strikers .. quite similar to us in shape with two wingers who look to drive on the counter. However no real potency to speak of and certainly no Mitro figure in the centre.

I think the key to the game will be marking Grealish out the game with McDonald. I genuinely feel Villa offer very little apart from him. I certainly think we can afford to commit players in attack provided he's kept quiet because their strikers lack any real threat compared to Derby.

maoconnor: I am glad we are playing Villa, they will try to play "real" football against us, and in doing so that will allow us to use our possession and composure to unlock them piece by piece. I think if we score first and early, could be a wonderful night for the boys in White! Wouldn't surprise me if we had to wait for the 60th minute or so break them down though.

Fulham Joe: I saw absolutely nothing from Aston Villa for us to worry about.
If we get beaten, it willl be because we're Fulham and we never ever win a final.
If we're on a going day, and get even a tiny bit of luck, we'll take care of them, I'm certain of it.

Andy S: For the one and only time this season Win and we are promoted lose and we are not. It is in our hands. We will win

Sherlock: I think it's clear, if we play our best, we are a better side than Villa. But they have more experience on and off the field and after all it's football - the best team doesn't always win.

Statto: The two teams are very finely balanced. We won't be expected to win easily, which is good, because we don't deal well with the pressure of expectation. With the pressure off, I think we'll be at our best, but a fully fit Villa team is a team (probably the only team, aside from Wolves) that can come close to our level if they're also at their best.

It should be a good game, played in the right way and probably the highest quality play-off final there has ever been. Certainly the football will be one or two big steps up from the standard of last year's final.

Carborundum: The Wembley pitch is five yards longer than Craven Cottage and a staggering ten yards longer than Villa Park according to Wikipedia. Aston Villa have a defensive leader whose inclination will be to play deep and oblige his fellow defenders to play to his line. There will be acres of space. We will outplay them. They can press hard in the first half and blow up in the second or we can do them slowly over 90 minutes. We just have to be positive and not let the occasion get to us. Then trust that the dominant side usually ends up with more goals.

If they had Mitrovic or Sessegnon my worry levels might increase. But they haven't. We have them.

If we had John Terry I'd be very worried indeed.

hovewhite: We will win,we have broke the winless run we have pace all down the sides,mitro is due a goal,we have seen sess who's sniffer in the box for the knockdown and rebounds.Terry has no pace only slow very slow.
Off the pitch we have slav the orchestra,the conductder. the tactician. Only the team not applying the plan Will stop us.
Stand up if you BELIEVE and come on you WHITTEES!!

supersimmo123: Villa worry me hugely. I think they have everything required to cause us trouble. I get people say we can hurt them with pace, but being honest they hardly struggled with Traore who is one of the fastest if not the fastest in the league.

They have experience throughout their spine, Terry, Jedinak, Snodgrass etc whilst they have Adomah, Kodja and Grealish who are fantastic players and for me could play at a higher level, certainly the latter. They have players who have good playoff experience and Terry as well all know has played at the highest level and Wembley is like a second home for him after his England days. Giving him some stick me help with that one though!

Any Fulham fan that thinks this will be a walk in the park is wrong. They will be equally as solid as Derby in the first leg and will provide a better threat going forward. They have a good midfield engine room must like us and I think the midfield will be what decides who wins this one on the day.

Having said all that, we have a ability to keep the ball and work it from side to side to open up the space for the midfield runners and will require our full-backs to be brave and bomb on. This was the biggest difference for me in the 2nd leg against Derby. Fredericks inparticular was up and down that right flank which allows space for AK and the Midfield to run between the lines.

I think the way to win this is no different to our usual game plan, stretch the game and make the pitch as wide as possible, have TC and SJ run in-between the lines and support Mitro up top. In regards to combating Villa, stick SJ on Grealish man for man, have him follow him everywhere and KMac can just sit and anchor that back 4 as he has done all season.

Important that whilst we play out from the back, try to limit all mistakes and if we need to go long ensure we win second balls all over the place. The lads need to push for 90 mins and be at there best to get us back to the big time and then we can see if this team is ready for the Prem.

Its probably as even a final as I can remember in the championship but with 2 very different styles of football being played. Very exciting and lets hope we can come out on top! COYW!



https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-vs-fulham-wembley-14690108

[WhiteJC]

 
Key Wembley Cogs: Aleksandar Mitrovic

The poster-boy of our Play-off push, the young Serb himself, has a huge weight of expectation riding on his shoulders come Saturday – and it's an opportunity that could well re-ignite his career should he deliver at Wembley. Sam Crosby-Crowne takes a look at the first of our key movers and shakers in the playoff final on Saturday.

With the Championship Play Off final coined 'the richest game in football', Mitro will be very aware of the global platform he will be on to prove his talent – here's a look at the impact he could bring and how important he is to Fulham's final push for Promotion.

Impact
12 goals and 1 assist from 17 appearances – Mitro's short spell at the Cottage has been a major highlight of another fantastic season by the Thames for the Whites.

Jokanovic has given Mitrovic the opportunity to be the strong, defence-disrupting, focal point of our attack – and he has excelled within Fulham's system. The way he holds the ball up, shields it from opposition centre halves and brings Fulham's pacey widemen into the game is clearly what Joka desires from his hitmen – and that's just on the ball. In the right areas, Mitro has been a towering presence and an absolute handful for his defensive counterparts.

His overall impact on Saturday's crunch clash for Promotion will therefore be judged on how well he gets us out of jail when we're under the cosh and how clinical he can be in front of goal.

Key Battle
Well, aren't we all relishing the chance to see Mitro go up against John Terry again? The latter is still showing his defensive qualities, albeit in a division lower than his career norm, and has the leadership skills to keep Villa's defence very organised and disciplined; but I'm dying to see what happens when you put a blood-thirsty Serbian up against him in with the pressure of a final as a backdrop.

Steve Bruce and his side would've completed the necessary research and deciphered how we like to get Mitro on the ball – you would think they would take great pleasure from seeing Curtis Davies shadow him at bay at Pride Park in the first leg of the Semi, plus the fact that the Villa defence kept him relatively quiet in the 2-0 win at home – but, on the flip side, Mitro was relentless in the reverse leg and definitely used a bit more of the space available to take the battle to Keogh & Forsyth as well as Davies.

This shows that Mitro is super effective when he's popping up across the front-line and getting in front of a different defender each time. The battle may well be won by Mitro taking on both James Chester and John Terry separately.

Conclusion
It's a big day for Aleksandar Mitrovic – not just for his time with the Whites, but also for his career in general. Get it right and some big European clubs could come calling for his services and his place at the forefront of his native Serbia's attack in Russia will be all but sealed.

It will be a bittersweet moment for fans and the player alike should he fire us back into the Premier League on, what could be, his final appearance in the white shirt. Thanks for the memories Mitro – let's make the biggest one of all at Wembley!



https://www.fulhamish.co.uk/post/2018-05-23-key-wembley-cogs-aleksander-mitrovic/

[Nero]

Secret Aston Villa Fan Crowdfunder to Destroy Fulham's Wembley Plans Hits Target

White Walls...

In the past week, there has been a lot of talk by Fulham fans of creating a 'White Wall' at Wembley on the east side of the stadium. You may have seen the Twitter hashtags #whitewall and #FFCWhiteWall doing the rounds, promoting their White Wall campaign that is supported by the club.

The idea...wait for it...is for all Fulham fans to wear white T-shirts or home shirts to create a visual white wall.

White Walls...

In the past week, there has been a lot of talk by Fulham fans of creating a 'White Wall' at Wembley on the east side of the stadium. You may have seen the Twitter hashtags #whitewall and #FFCWhiteWall doing the rounds, promoting their White Wall campaign that is supported by the club.

The idea...wait for it...is for all Fulham fans to wear white T-shirts or home shirts to create a visual white wall.

Uncertain Foundations

With Fulham fans allowed up to five tickets, when they booked their play-off final tickets, it's been purposed that due to the moderate size of their fanbase, this may lead to daytrippers, neutral friends and family, and even Villa fans joining their ranks in their end of Wembley.

This could create dodgy foundations for any wall, but Villa fans are taking no chances.

Villa's supporters have been past masters of winning the Wembley battle of the stands, with their latest success drowning out Liverpool fans' pre-match rendition of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' before the 2015 FA Cup semi-final kicked-off. After which, they then produced an impressive 'VILLA' mosaic.

It both, took the Liverpool fans by surprise and spurred the Villa players on to victory.

This time, to counter Fulham's 'White Wall', the plans are a little more elaborate and take their cue from the popular TV series Game of Thrones.

***SPOILER ALERT***

In the final episode of the last season of a Game of Thrones, there is literally the blueprint of how to destroy a giant white wall.

In the climatic scene, the Night King uses his newly acquired pet dragon to lay waste to the wall that separates his undead army from the living of Westerns.

Taking their lead from this episode, Villa supporters ran a secret crowdfunder on the dark web, away from the prying eyes of local press and mainstream social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, to raise an undisclosed five-figure sum for a giant inflatable pyro-breathing dragon.

Due to the immense costs involved of creating such a giant inflatable pyro-breathing dragon, Villa fans had to enlist the contacts of owner Tony Xia to get it sourced in China under the supervision of the Recon Group, to keep costs down.

Also, it is understood that Xia astutely negotiated a 'try before you by' deal, similar to what Fulham fan's seem to think their appearance at Wembley stadium is.

With the Villa owner a big fan of Games of Thrones, Doctor Tony has allegedly volunteered to ride the dragon into Wembley Stadium during the build-up to the match, like the Night King does in the TV show, to personally destroy Fulham's white wall himself.

Preparation

What Fulham fans haven't realised is their downfall has been prepared in plain sight.

The pyro-breathing mechanisms for the dragon were successfully tested recently on the Villa Park pitch, before the second-leg of the play-off semi-final win against Middlesbrough.

Earlier in the year, at an invite-only Chinese New Year celebration in the grounds of Aston Hall, the dragon itself got a test run, which MOMS was lucky enough to get a snap of below...


'Symbolic of a new golden age of Aston Villa football club'

Not Claret Enough

The reason the dragon turned out to be gold and a Chinese dragon in design, is very much down to Dr Tony's smart-thinking and diplomacy, that helped defuse an argument that had arisen within the Villa ranks.

Originally, Villa fans had earmarked a more traditional looking dragon design, ala Smaug in The Hobbit or the ones in Game of Thrones. Everything was going to plan, until a certain section of supporters complained that the dragon was too purple and not claret enough.

An argument not too dissimilar to some fans outrage in recent years over the colour of the club's last few home shirts.

Xia, with his vast contacts in the Chinese smart dragon manufacturing sector, was able to source the golden dragon to provide all parties with a happy compromise.

In the press release, the club only sent to MOMS, they stated that the dragon's colour is 'symbolic of a new golden age of Aston Villa football club'.

Rumours that next season's Villa away shirt designed by Luke 1977 is also gold, cannot be confirmed at this time.
Testing

A Villa spokesman, was noticeably very excited about the dragon plans, when speaking with MOMS to give us the lowdown.

"The inflatable pyro-breathing dragon should lay waste to the Fulham fans' white wall in 15 seconds flat by our estimates," said the Villa spokesman.

"It could actually be quicker than that, it all depends on how flammable those clappers are that Fulham fans use."

There have been concerns that Wembley stadium would ban the dragon due to health and safety concerns, further frustrating Villa supporters, whom on their previous Wembley visit to the 2015 FA Cup final, had their giant surfer flag banned by the stadium.

Villa's legal team pointed out to Wembley Stadium officials that since the dragon will fly in and only occupy the air above the stadium, they cannot legally object, since the London Borough of Brent council doesn't have any no-fly zone regulations in place for inflatable dragons.

The two parties agreed though, that it's best if Xia and the inflatable pyro-breathing dragon should fly in-and-out of the stadium while Sky TV is on a commercial break. This will at least spare those viewers of a sensitive disposition from witnessing the wall's complete and utter destruction.
Pimms Sippers Advice

A lot has been said on social media about Fulham fans and their sun cream warning tweets (like the one above). Pimms Sippers, if you are going to take sun lotion into the stadium, make sure it's about Factor 5000, as there's an inflatable pyro-breathing dragon coming your way.

For extra protection, maybe take in one of those aluminium foil blankets they use after marathons.

Most of all, and you'll thank Uncle MOMS later for this, take some ear plugs. You don't want to damage your precious little ear drums from the sheer volume of Villa's travelling army.

UTV


https://www.myoldmansaid.com/secret-aston-villa-fan-crowdfunder-to-destroy-fulhams-wembley-plans-hits-target/

Sounds like villa full of hot air and arguing between each other.

[garyclashcityrocker]

The young boy with the sign is my Grandson and as previously posted Mitro did actually give him his shirt on the walk round after the Sunderland game. To say he was chuffed was an understatement.
Both my Son (on the phone in the picture) and myself (out of shot) were so surprised we didn't react quick enough to get a picture. On the back of this did any take a snap of the very generous hero passing the shirt???? Long shot but you never know.