It has been dubbed the ‘richest game in football’ as on Tuesday evening Brentford and Fulham will make the short trip to Wembley Stadium to battle it out in the Championship play-off final and earn the final place in the Premier League next season.
The stakes here are absolutely massive. The difference between winning and losing is well over £100m, not to mention the asset damage that follows from defeat in this match. It is third against fourth for what would be a huge promotion for both clubs.
Where to watch
The match will be screened live in full on the Sky Main Event and Sky Football channels. The build up to the final begins at 7pm with the match kicking off at 7.45pm.
Brentford
Third placed Brentford have already messed up one chance of promotion this season but courtesy of a wonderful fight back in the semi-final against Swansea they have another shot at glory. As with the semi-final, they won’t need telling that this is the ninth play-off campaign they have embarked on and they are still looking for their first success, but to be fair this is a team that don’t lack for self-belief as we saw last week.
This is no longer about self-belief though. This is about bottle and theirs is going to be tested in full again here. Very few of their players have played in a match of this magnitude and while they are the better of the two teams, the better team doesn’t always win this match. Brentford will need to be clinical in both boxes but they beat Fulham just after lockdown so they will have the confidence of that behind them.
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Fulham
Given that they were 2-0 up from the away leg, Fulham would not have wanted such a cliff-hanger for their semi-final, but they are never bad things when you win them. To be fair to Fulham, Cardiff had absolutely nothing to lose and threw the kitchen sink at them but the Cottagers did what they needed to do and now they will be all about winning one more football match to make it back to the Premier League at the first time of asking.
The big thing Fulham have in their favour for this match is they were here two years ago in this very match and they got over the line, albeit against an Aston Villa side who didn’t turn up on the day. That experience can’t be underplayed. You only have to look back to last year when Villa had it on their side and won. Fulham know how to prepare for this match and win it and with the top scorer in the division in their ranks they will be very confident.
Team News
Thomas Frank has reported no injury problems for this final so he will have to decide on the make up of his midfield. He mentioned in his interview after the second leg of the semi-final that Mathias Jensen had his best game for the club so he is likely to play. That makes it between Josh Dasilva and Emiliano Marcondes for the other spot.
The big news for Fulham is that top scorer and Golden Boot winner Aleksandar Mitrovic has been declared fit by Scott Parker. The Serbia international missed both legs of the semi-final. Neeskens Kabano missed the second leg of that tie and he has been passed fit to feature here too.
Betting
This should be a cracking contest but I can’t help but think that the size of the prize is going to tighten this one right up but I can’t look past the experience and that is with Fulham. I admit it is different without a crowd but Wembley is still iconic no matter how many people are watching and the fact Fulham have experienced it before is a massive help I firmly believe that. I’m tempted to take them at near to 3/1 to win this in 90 minutes which is just a daft price but I do expect a tight contest.
Brentford’s form concerns me. They were going great guns but that came to a serious halt and although they managed to turn their semi-final around, Swansea defended terribly in the first half of that second leg. I refuse to believe Fulham will be as bad here. Fulham have built up a nice head of steam and although they lost their second leg, that job was all about defending the lead they built up in the first game. This is a much more even match than the odds suggest but with experience on Fulham’s side I’ll back them to get promoted.
Tips
Back Fulham to win the trophy for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with 888sport
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