Russell has mother of all motivations

has been brilliant here and is great around the place, so he just about got away with it.”

Zamora’s goal was voted Wembley’s Moment of 2014, even pipping boxer Carl Froch’s sledgehammer punch to knock out George Groves, and Russell admits he felt like he had been battered around the head at the time.

“It was so incredibly cruel,” he said. “We wanted it over and to win it in 90 minutes, but we knew if it was going into extratime we were going to have more legs and we had more in the tank. We spoke to a few of their boys after it and they admitted they were just holding out for penalties.

“They had gone, so it was difficult to take. We were brilliant and didn’t look like losing, and then everybody knows what happened.

“It is still a tough one to deal with. You look at someone else celebrating and getting what you deserved and have to stand there on the pitch and watch them pick up what should have been yours.

“It’s a place I never ever want to be in again in my career. So if we do get through these two legs, which will be tough, and get ourselves back there, hopefully it is us that is doing that.

“It wasn’t a great summer after that. It was pretty difficult and even coming back into training wasn’t great.

“You have to use the sight of them celebrating as an incentive. When you see that, and teams like Leicester going wild, that has to be your aim.

“If you can’t think about yourself being in that situation and celebrating in the same way, I don’t know what else you can do to get yourself up for it.”