Fulham have gone one step further than last season with one match separating them from the Premier League.

Slavisa Jokanovic's side have been exciting to watch over the past two seasons with their free-flowing creative play which has made them hard to stop, but last season ended in failure as Jaap Stam's Reading beat them over two legs in the play-off semi-finals.

There were worries that this season would be the same after Derby won the first leg 1-0 and held them at 0-0 going into half-time at Craven Cottage. However, they turned it around with a strong second half display to win 2-0 with Ryan Sessegnon and Denis Odoi getting the goals.

Villa be a tough task, though, because they have some vastly experienced players who are used to any potential scenario that is thrown their way, but the Cottagers did finish higher in the table and should be seen as favourites going into this match.

Here are three things Fulham need to do to come away with a win...

They need to use the full size of Wembley's pitch to their advantage in order to stretch Villa defensively. This will open up gaps for players such as Ryan Sessegnon to exploit with his intelligent runs using blindside movement among other things.

Fulham have to create space for Tom Cairney and others to dictate proceedings in the final third, so the full-backs need to push up in order to give the team width. This allows the wingers to cut inside into the half spaces with Aleksandar Mitrovic the focal point in the middle drawing in the opposition defence.

Their possession based style means they should have no issue retaining possession and shifting it from side to side in order to create openings as the defence moves across.

The Cottagers need to ensure that they dominate the territory in the central attacking areas as well as having plenty of options for the man in possession. Crossing is unlikely to be useful against Villa due to the height advantage they possess, so the central areas as well as cut backs from the byline are the dangerous areas.

Villa are likely to sit in a low block in order to compact the space between the lines and ensure there is no space behind the defence to exploit. Therefore, deep runs will be key in breaking them down because of the conundrum they provide defenders with over who is tracking them as well as the difference in speed.

Ideally, the wingers will be making these diagonal runs from wide areas with Mitrovic occupying the two centre-backs with the three central midfielders stretched horizontally across the central attacking area just outside the opposition box. The two full-backs offer the quick switch of play on either flank to take advantage of a disorganised Villa defensive shape.

The main task for Fulham is to stick to their principles that got them here in the first place. They were two points away from reaching the automatic promotion spots and went on a 23 game unbeaten run, which included wins over Wolves, Cardiff and Villa as well as victories over the rest of the top six among others.

Therefore, they are perfectly capable of beating anyone in this division, even Wolves, as well as their opponents in the final when they are at their peak. They just need to stay confident in their methods and stick to the short passing possession based style with Tom Cairney seeing as much of the ball as possible due to his ability to unlock a defence.

Nerves will play a part and they may cause mistakes which is dangerous for such a high technical standard of play that takes risks, but this is what they are best at and it will pay dividends if they keep faith as they did against Derby.