GEORGE Burley has ruled out revenge as the motive as Ipswich bid to avoid a repeat of last season's dramatic play-off defeat. They were singing the blues at Portman Road after Wanderers won on the away goals rule - the third successive season the Suffolk club had failed to make it beyond the semi-final stage.

But Burley insists: "It's not about getting our own back. At the start of the season, we set out to get promotion, and that's still the aim. We are just looking to go one better than before and reach the final.

"I believe we are in a good position to do that, because we have a better squad than last season, and the players have done tremendously well to get this far." He explained: "I always had faith in my players, even when we were 2-0 down at Bolton. Everything was going against us in that first half, but we dug in and pulled the situation around.

"We showed a lot of spirit to come back from 2-0 down, and I hope we can continue where we left off.

"I think we have been unlucky, finishing third in the last two years and failing to go up automatically on the last day. But we are trying to put that out of our minds and we must concentrate on getting past Bolton."

The latest bulletin from Portman Road suggests that David Johnson has failed to recover from the neck injury he suffered at the Reebok but Burley has already sprung one surprise in preferring Mark Venus to Wayne Brown in Sunday's starting line-up yet that could be a smokescreen!