Ezri Konsa has been through some huge ups and downs with Aston Villa this season.
The highs of victory too often followed by defeat and one of the most painful and brutal lessons was against Manchester City in January.
In the middle of two epic Carabao Cup semi finals against Leicester to reach Wembley, they were thrashed 6-1 at home by Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions, having already lost at the Etihad.
"It would be good revenge. That’s the thing I’m most looking forward to: getting revenge. They can’t do the triple over us and we won't allow that. It will be a good test for us and a good test for them,” said Konsa.
“You’ve always got to have that spirit in a team. Us as lads, we hate losing — that’s everyone as well. Man City doing the double over us, even though they are a great side, we think we can beat them as well. So come Sunday, we will show what we’re about.
“Man City are a great team, one of the best in Europe. They’ve got some really good players that could really hurt us and I think that we did allow some of their top players to have a lot of time on the ball, which did hurt us. I think their movement was really good.
“In football, anything is possible. Personally, it’s my first time playing at Wembley and we don’t want to make a fool of ourselves at Wembley so we are all looking forward to it and know we could get a result and bring the cup back home.”
Konsa, 22, knows Villa face a daunting task but this is a player who has battled the odds for his whole career before making it as a Premier League player and getting called up by England under-21s.
It is an impressive rise from youngster with London’s renowned Sunday team Senrab which produced the likes of John Terry and Jermain Defoe, joining Charlton and coming through the ranks with Ademola Lookman and Joe Gomez.
Konsa even has a tattoo which says “Blessed” to remind him how hard he has worked to get to this wonderful position but also nicely sums up the way he comes across as a person. Unassuming but determined.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of kids my age or younger who want to be in my position and not a lot get the chance to become professional footballers so I do feel like I’m blessed,” he said.
“I do feel lucky, but it hasn’t come by luck. I have worked hard to be in this position I am in now and I feel like if I do keep working hard and keep listening to coaches I’ll get far again.”
The connection with Villa boss Dean Smith was established at Brentford and being reunited last summer was not a surprise. Konsa has slotted in to a back three, enjoyed life in the top flight but admits they must find some consistency to stay up.
It has been a season of ups and downs. They had a players’ meeting after defeat at Watford in December which Konsa describes as a “turning point” but they must now dig deep again.
Konsa added: “This season we’ve just been a bit inconsistent in our performances, but I think by the end we will do well. Right now it’s about focusing on the next game.
“After that Watford game we went back to the training ground, watched the clips, did the debrief, seen what went wrong, and see what we can do right. We just have to believe we can do it.”