Aston Villa blog: Just one more big game needed
If at the start of the season you had said to me ‘You have to win the final game to get promoted’, I would have snatched your hand off.
The fact it’s a play-off final is irrelevant to me, writes Justin Hawthorne.
Yes, it’s a big occasion with another Wembley appearance and some would say it’s a far more satisfying and glorious way to go up than winning the league, but ultimately the only thing that matters is winning the game.
We find ourselves playing Fulham in the final and, if you believe some people, we are playing a team on a par with Barcelona.
Yes, they are a good side and should be given the respect they deserve, but they are only a Championship club still.
As we have seen over the last few games, they are more than beatable.
As long as we concentrate on ourselves and play as we all know we can, then we are more than capable of going up with one more big performance.
I’m not tempting fate or predicting anything because I don’t want to jinx the game, so all I’ll say is... if we play well then we will be fine.
We will be once again relying heavily on the big game players in the squad with the likes of seasoned pros in John Terry, James Chester, Mile Jedinak and Ahmed Elmohamody.
And the ace in the pack is Jack Grealish, who alongside Robert Snodgrass and Albert Adomah hopefully can create the chances for either Lewis Grabban or Jonathan Kodjia to take us home to the Premier League.
Whatever happens the 40,000 Villa fans going down will make it a day to remember.
Fingers crossed... let’s do this!
