Ex-Chelsea star eyeing EFL Trophy glory with Plymouth Argyle history-makers
Jordan Houghton is hoping it will be second time lucky for both him and Plymouth Argyle at Wembley on Sunday when they meet Bolton Wanderers in the EFL Trophy final.
The Argyle midfielder came through the ranks at Chelsea but spent time on loan at the club during his first ever year in senior football back in the 2015/16 campaign.
These days, Argyle are one of League One's top dogs and hounding on the door of the Championship courtesy of Steven Schumacher, but back when Houghton first played for the club, they were fighting to get out of the fourth-tier of English football.
Houghton was part of the Argyle squad that was beaten 2-0 by AFC Wimbledon in the League Two play-off final, but didn't actually make it onto the pitch despite recovering from an injury in the build-up to the match.
This time around, Houghton - who hasn't been back to the national stadium as a player since that 2016 defeat - is hoping to make amends - and his proper Wembley debut.
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Houghton tells Mirror Football : "Hopefully I can experience [Wembley] from a different angle. They [Chelsea] actually told me to go on holiday after the injury! But there was something in my head that told me [if I stick around] that I might have a chance of playing because I felt like we'd get to the [EFL Trophy] final, so I made that my goal.
"I wasn't really expecting to make the final myself, but just to be involved was a great experience. Getting to Wembley was great, but it's not as good when you're coming away as a loser!
"The experience was invaluable, though. Things like the lead-up to the game, the emotions beforehand and seeing the fans as well, because it's a big, big thing going to Wembley."
Houghton isn't the only one breaking new ground this weekend, though. Sunday's showpiece final marks Argyle's first-ever cup final: a feat that has already ensured that the current crop of players at the club will go down in Plymouth folklore.
The League One leaders, who have reached play-off finals before but never in a domestic trophy will be rewarded with a bumper crowd at Wembley against promotion rivals Bolton, who are currently fifth in the standings. Over 39,000 Plymouth fans are expected, with the national stadium expecting in excess of 80,000 in total - a figure just short of the 85,021 competition record which was set by Portsmouth and Sunderland back in 2019.
Houghton and Plymouth also have their sights set on promotion to the Championship (Chris Vaughan/CameraSport)The huge attendance figure will make Sunday's clash the hottest EFL ticket in town this weekend - and Schumacher believes that is testament to the size of the two clubs involved.
"The fact that there are 80,000 fans there shows how big and how strong the teams are in the final," Schumacher tells Mirror Football . "This isn't just a normal game. Already there's a lot more media attention and stuff going on outside - I've had to sort out tickets for 75 people from my family coming from Liverpool and the North West, that doesn't normally happen!
"Hopefully it is a good game of football. We encourage the players to go out there and and show everybody how good they are. There's no better place to do that than Wembley stadium."
Although overcoming a Bolton side which has been reinvigorated by Ian Evatt will be no mean feat, Argyle have looked head and shoulders above anyone else in the third tier at times this term.
Under Schumacher's predecessor Ryan Lowe, Plymouth had evolved into a slick footballing unit, but the current Argyle boss has taken the club to the next level with an attractive, expansive style of play that wouldn't be out of place higher up the pyramid.
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Argyle boss Steven Schumacher has won plenty of plaudits this season (Cameron Smith/Getty)"We back ourselves against anyone," Houghton explains. "We've gone to the big sides away from home and played expansive football with a man to man press which I don't think a lot of teams would do. We have confidence in ourselves but we know that Bolton are a real top side. They play some nice football and have some good players, so it'll be a very tough game. Cup finals are quite different anyway, though, as it's a one-hit game.
"Our main objective has always been promotion, this has come along because we were keen to do well in every competition. Being the first cup final for Argyle is massive; for the players involved as well, it's huge."
While history is on the line on Sunday, a place in the Championship is still the prize Plymouth covet above all others. Schumacher's side are being fuelled by their agonising collapse last year, where they missed out on a play-off place after being thrashed 5-0 by MK Dons on the final day of the season after looking a safe bet for top-six finish.
Victory in Sunday's final and securing promotion would be the ultimate redemption story - but Houghton and the rest of the Plymouth squad won't be getting carried away.
"What happened in the last game last year was devastating but I think that's what gave us the shake-up going into pre-season that we needed. We want to right that wrong this year and hopefully we can go one step better and avoid the play-offs altogether. I think at the moment we are where we deserve to be, but there's still eight games to go and a lot could happen."
Houghton came through the ranks at Chelsea and was on loan at Plymouth the last time they reached Wembley back in 2016 (Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)The battle at the top of the third-tier has been arguably the most relentless in the entire English pyramid over the past couple of months with Plymouth, Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich Town and Barnsley all still in with a realistic opportunity to win the League One title.
So does Sunday's final, in some ways, represent some respite from the cut and thrust of the title race?
"A little bit, yeah," Schumacher says when the question is put to him. "The league, over the last couple of months, has been quite stressful with how tight it is. All the teams who are challenging at the top of the division are so strong that you have to be on your game.
"This is different: this is a one-off. The difference between this occasion is that it's not a play-off final, which defines your whole season in 90 minutes. That sometimes allows teams to freeze. But this is a game we can be positive for and try to attack, because we know it isn't the end of the season.
"We still have a huge eight games to go and arguably the prize at the end of that - the Championship - is bigger. If we can win on Sunday then that would give us so much heading into the final run-in."
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