Aston Villa midfielder Conor Hourihane slates Fulham for celebrating like they’ve won the league
There were ecstatic scenes at Craven Cottage after Fulham beat Derby 2-1 on aggregate to book a place at Wembley
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CONOR HOURIHANE has accused Fulham of ‘celebrating like they had won the league’ after making the play-off final.
The midfielder’s Aston Villa side lined up a Wembley showdown with the Cottagers after edging past Middlesbrough on Wednesday.
Now the teams will fight for a place in the Premier League a week on Saturday.
But Hourihane revealed the Villa players were not impressed with Slavisa Jokanovic’s side’s wild celebrations on the pitch and in the dressing room after Tuesday’s win over Derby.
He said even though Jack Grealish was hoisted on to the shoulders of jubilant fans, the Villa players’ reaction was more subdued, knowing there is still a job to be done.
Fulham players were also carried off the turf by fans and Irish international Hourihane, 27, said: “That’s been mentioned, don’t worry.
“They celebrated like they’d won the league or something like that.
“We had calm celebrations, everyone was just high-fiving each other.
“There was nothing major going on in the dressing room at all because there’s more business to be done.
“The fans are obviously going to enjoy it — they’re looking forward to a good Wembley day out. But we’ve got our business heads on.”
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And Hourihane admits the Craven Cottage side have the edge after missing out on automatic promotion by just two points, five ahead of Villa.
But he added: “Are we underdogs?
“Maybe so, Fulham are a good side, they finished ahead of us in the league, deservedly so. The table doesn’t lie.
“They might be slight favourites going into it. But all the best to them if they fancy themselves more than us because we’ll be ready for it, that’s for sure.”
Another Villa man who is more than confident is winger Albert Adomah.
The 30-year-old said: “There will be a lot of expectation but hopefully the best team will win — and I believe that will be us.
“Fulham haven’t been in the Premier League for a long time but Aston Villa were only recently relegated.
“Hopefully, at the second time of asking, we can come out on top.
“It’ll be good — it’s two big teams. We finished fourth and they came third and it’ll be a tough game.
“They’re one of the form teams and missed out on the last day, so maybe there’ll be a bit of disappointment.
“We knew that we’d be in the play-offs throughout — and hopefully we can give them a challenge.”