Paul Merson praises Aston Villa’s Alan Hutton’s play off display

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Aston Villa progressed to the play off final last night, with Alan Hutton’s display particularly impressive.

Paul Merson has told Sky Sports that Alan Hutton was ‘outstanding’ in the play offs, even though he felt that the Aston Villa man’s career was over two years ago.

Hutton was backed by Steve Bruce in the play-offs, with the Scot given a man-marking role to do on Middlesbrough’s Adama Traore.

Traore is Boro’s biggest threat, so Hutton had a massive role to play for Villa over the two legs, and he performed admirably.

The 33-year-old full-back completely shut out the threat of Traore, with Villa keeping back to back clean sheets over the two matches.

Villa ended up booking their place at Wembley thanks to a 1-0 aggregate win.

And Merson said: “Last two games… two years ago he had no future at Villa. He’d been on loan and come back, wasn’t going to get a game, but he was absolutely outstanding.

“He’s nowhere near as quick as Traore, but you wouldn’t have known that today. He was miles too clever for Traore.”

Hutton’s future beyond this season at Villa is actually uncertain, as his contract expires.

Although Steve Bruce has suggested that he wants to keep Hutton around, Villa may need to earn promotion to be able to afford his wages.

Hutton looks likely to start in the play off final when Villa meet Fulham at Wembley in two weekends’ time.