---
title: "Villa player ratings: Fulham (Play-Off Final)"
canonical: "https://readastonvilla.com/2018/05/27/villa-player-ratings-fulham-play-off-final/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Sheldon Muchmore"
section: "Features & Analysis"
published: "2018-05-27T12:20:18Z"
modified: "2018-05-27T20:57:18Z"
---

# Villa player ratings: Fulham (Play-Off Final)

Aston Villa condemned themselves to a third season in the Championship on Saturday evening thanks to a 1-0 defeat to Fulham in the Play-Off Final.

The game, as expected, got off to a nervy start as neither side wanted to make an error that could end up costing their side £170 million.

Bruce, to no great surprise, set his team out defensively, but it was a collection of defensive errors that would ultimately cost Villa a coveted place in the Premier League.

In the 23rd minute, Ryan Sessegnon picked up the ball from around 25 yards out, Hourihane flew in with a sliding tackle but got nowhere near, Terry found himself out of position and was too slow to get back, which left a huge gap in behind the defence for Sessegnon to play in Tom Cairney, who Hutton failed to pick up, to slot the ball past a helpless Johnstone.

Fredericks should have been sent off 6 minutes later for stamping on Grealish’s knee, but, to everyone’s disbelief, he wasn’t even booked for the assault. Anthony Taylor clearly tried to make amends for his error in the second half when he also failed to send Grealish off for a dangerous lunge, but who knows how the game would have panned out if he did his job correctly to start with.

Villa were slightly the better team in the second-half as they had to go for it, but they just couldn’t find the goal they needed to take the match into extra time.

When Taylor blew the final whistle, the Fulham players were obviously jubilant and ran over to their fans to celebrate with some embarrassing dancing. The Villa players slumped to the turf, head in their hands. Oh well, there’s always next season.

Here are our Villa player ratings for yesterday’s disappointing result: