Ryan Sessegnon turns 18 on Friday. Not old enough to get a tattoo, but old enough to face the muscular men of the Championship, arms mostly covered in legally obtained ink, 47 times. Sessegnon notched up his half‑century in all competitions for the season in Fulham’s play-off semi‑final first leg 1-0 defeat at Derby, and his season might not nearly be over yet: he has an outside chance of being named in England’s World Cup squad on Wednesday.
It is a lot to take for a kid, and watching Sessegnon in the last few weeks of a gruelling season, it’s tricky not to come to the conclusion that it all might be a bit too much, too soon. Sessegnon was substituted after an ineffective performance against Derby, similar to Fulham’s last few games of the regular season.
This, it should be made clear, is nothing like a criticism. To physically and mentally get through a season in this most bruising of divisions is tough enough for even experienced souls, but to try it when you are legally still a child seems almost impossible.
But Sessegnon has already achieved the impossible in that sense: he has been one of the Championship’s best players all season and is Fulham’s top‑scorer, his 15 league goals all the more remarkable when he played half the campaign at left-back. A defender‑turned‑winger with a goal poacher’s instinct, there’s little doubt that he will be a special player.
Will he be special now, though, when Fulham need him to be? Slavisa Jokanovic, who deserves much praise for ignoring Sessegnon’s age and trusting his talent all season, did the sensible thing and deflected attention, but he could be forgiven for feeling worried.
“It’s a big game for myself, for my assistants, for the whole team,” the Fulham manager said when asked if the second leg on Monday night will be a big game for the youngster. “He doesn’t need any more pressure on him.
“The game doesn’t only depend on what Sessegnon will do. To put all this responsibility on the back of one kid – we don’t need that. He showed many times he’s a great lad, a great footballer, a great worker. We trust he’ll be at his best level. This man is 17 years old. This man is top-scorer for Fulham. This man has a very important future in front of him.”
An important present, too: you would not back against Sessegnon pulling out something special, but the next question is whether he will be allowed to by Derby. Their defence was superb in the first leg, smothering Fulham’s passing game and limiting their best players’ chances to excel although the Derby manager, Gary Rowett, suggested his team would not simply sit on their advantage in the return.
“We’ll try to be as brave as possible – what we can’t do is go down there and try to protect the lead,” said Rowett, who hinted he would make changes to his starting XI in order to maintain the same physically demanding performance.
Will the way Derby neutralised Fulham alter the home side’s game plan? “We don’t need any revolution in my team,” Jokanovic said. “We followed the same style for the last few years, so it’s not necessary to change much. We will analyse today’s game, we’ll try to find a solution, to be more clinical. We must be ready for everything.”
This is a beautifully balanced tie, likely to feature that sort of glorious chaos synonymous with the play‑offs. The winners will face either Middlesbrough or Aston Villa in the final, Villa taking a 1-0 advantage into their second leg, to be played on Tuesday.
Before this season, Rowett’s last involvement in the second‑tier play-offs was as a player, scoring for Birmingham as they vainly tried to overturn a 4-0 semi-final deficit against Barnsley. That was on 18 May 2000, the day Sessegnon was born. What a remarkable story it would be if Sessegnon decided the game on Monday.