Aaron Ramsey: It was 'amazing' to score the FA Cup winner for Arsenal last season

Ramsey hoping to repeat the feat next weekend

Aaron Ramsey banished the heartbreak of FA Cup final defeat with a winning goal at Wembley 12 months ago - and it is an experience the Wales midfielder intends to enjoy again with Arsenal on May 30.

The Cardiff schoolboy was just 16 and 142 days when he made a substitute appearance in the final half hour of the 2008 final, where the Bluebirds were defeated 1-0 by Portsmouth.

Having been inconsolable as he trudged off the Wembley turf in tears, roll the clock on to the summer of 2014 and Ramsey would be engulfed by his team-mates after an extra-time strike sealed a dramatic 3-2 victory for the Gunners.

An estimated 250,000 Arsenal fans packed the streets around Islington for a long-awaited open-top bus parade the following morning, and those memories are the ones which Ramsey wants to invoke again by getting the better of Aston Villa at Wembley.

"The winner (in last season's FA Cup final) was just an amazing feeling, and with my celebration, I didn't really know what to do, I was knackered. I was just running about and it all caught up on me then, so I needed a couple of seconds to get my breath back and realise just what I had actually done," said Ramsey, who joined Arsenal from Cardiff in June 2008, and recovered from an horrific double leg fracture at Stoke in February 2010 to become the Gunners' stand-out player of last season.

"Then on the following day, it was amazing to see there was a quarter-of-a-million people on the streets, just to see how many supporters had come out, that was quite overwhelming as well, to realise how much this means for those people, to have finally won something for ourselves and for them.

"Those sorts of feeling you got after winning a trophy is difficult to achieve, everyone realised that we want more of this.

"We are putting pressure on ourselves to get the best out of each other, and I feel like we have done that in the second half of this season.

"We have really stuck by each other, worked hard for each other and we want another feeling like we had last season, so we do definitely push ourselves as a team."

Having edged past Sky Bet Championship side Reading following a blunder by goalkeeper Adam Federici when he let Alexis Sanchez's low shot squirm over the line, and since sustaining form during the closing weeks of the Premier League campaign, Arsenal are favourites to retain the trophy.

With some silverware finally deposited back in the Emirates Stadium trophy cabinet, Ramsey believes there is now a different focus at the club - one of continuing the side's natural development.

"That sort of pressure has gone because we won something last season, so there is no more of this nine years (without success)," said the Wales international, who has again had to battle against a string of niggling injuries during the 2014/2015 campaign.

"Second (in the Premier League) probably is progression from last season definitely and from a couple of seasons where we have been battling for fourth.

"We are in another FA Cup final, so maybe you can say that (overall) is an improvement on last season."

PA