Matt Maher: Fulham's Tom Cairney - the man who put Aston Villa on the way to title race

At the age of 32, the midfielder has only ever played for the Cottagers, Hull and Blackburn, yet you could make a strong argument of Villa being another club upon which he had a major impact.

His winning goal in the 2018 Championship play-off final ranks among the most important in the latter’s history, a vital piece in the chain of events which has led, five-and-a-half years later, to them sitting third in the Premier League in the thick of the title race.

At the time, Villa’s defeat at Wembley looked disastrous. Within a matter of days, they were plunged into a cash crisis, administration staring them in the face. Then came Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens’ remarkable 11th hour rescue act and ever since, albeit with a few hiccups, the prevailing direction has been up.

It is impossible not to wonder what might have happened had Cairney placed his 23rd-minute shot wide of the post, or Ryan Fredericks been sent-off for stamping on Jack Grealish a few minutes later and Villa gone on to win the match and clinch promotion?

Of course, it is also impossible to know. In the short-term, things may have worked out fine. The guaranteed £170million in riches earned through promotion would have been enough to paper over the cracks in owner Tony Xia’s empire for a while. Perhaps Xia would have got out when the going was good and sold to successors with deeper pockets in any case?

Yet the reality is the 2018 sale was done in desperation, by an owner who despite having his back to the wall was determined to cling to whatever he could, for as long as he could. The most likely scenario, had Villa beaten Fulham, is of them still running into trouble but at a much later date, with finances so messy even the likes of Sawiris and Edens, with their resources, might have deemed them too much of a risk.

The lesson of the 2018 play-off final is that sometimes you strike it lucky even when, in the moment, the opposite feels true.