Little and Large out to destroy 'yellow' Klitschko

He said: "I'm missing them all but I have to do this. I miss my baby, Maliha, very much because at five months they change so fast and I'm missing out on things. And Nubia doesn't like it when her daddy can't tuck her in at night. But I have to cut myself off. I have to get the meanness, the anger, to come out and I can't do that when I see the people I love the most. If they were around me I'd go back to how I normally am. But I don't want to be that way now, I want to be vicious.

"Jimmy sees the mood change and he knows what's going on because he's a fighter too."

McDonnell knows to that in the buildup to a big fight you have to get a psychological edge over your opponent and that may explain his claim that Ukraine's Vitali Klitschko has a yellow streak running through him.

If such a verbal low blow came from an ill-mannered upstart, it could be dismissed. But McDonnell not only talks the talk, he's walked the walk. In the history of British boxing, there haven't been many men who have matched his courage in the ring. As an amateur, he was twice denied an ABA title but he returned a third time to win it.

As a professional, he twice reached the 12th round in challenges for the WBC super-featherweight belt. That he never prevailed over American Brian Mitchell or Ghanaian legend Azumah Nelson, against whom he rose from the canvas four times before being stopped just 40 seconds from the final bell in 1989, remains a matter of personal regret.

He did lift the European featherweight title and end Barry McGuigan's career but McDonnell, now 44, admitted: "I never felt fulfilled as a fighter. But when Danny beats Klitschko it will be like winning the world title myself.

"Too many fighters have too many people around them, and they suddenly feel lonely when everyone disappears at the start of the first round. That's why I'll deliberately disappear and leave him sometimes because, mentally, you've got to become attuned to that feeling of being alone. People just don't realise that boxing is a very lonely sport."

When alone, Williams will watch Kung Fu films in his bedroom, shadow box in the street or go jogging after midnight. He laughed as he recalled: "I keep walking a dog which then wakes the street with its yelping. The neighbours think there's someone crazy staying here."

The floor in the living room is strewn with tapes of Klitschko's past fights and those of Williams's hero, Rocky Marciano. McDonnell said: "All Marciano cared about was winning. And that's how Danny has got to be on Saturday. It has to be a case of kill or be killed." It is an attitude McDonnell believes Klitschko is incapable of embracing. He points to Klitschko's loss of the WBO heavyweight title in 2000, when the 6ft 7ins giant succumbed to a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder at the end of the ninth round against Chris Byrd.

McDonnell said: "Klitschko showed his colours when he quit. No matter how you look at it, that yellow streak is in him."

Williams, by contrast, knocked out British and Commonwealth title rival Mark Potter in the same year despite suffering a dislocated right shoulder.

McDonnell said: "I wouldn't be surprised if Klitschko quits on his stool again on Saturday. He underestimated Danny when he took this fight. Now he's having second thoughts. I certainly can't conceive of any situation in which Danny will quit, just as it never crossed my mind to quit against Azumah Nelson. I think that's one reason why Danny respects me. I don't just talk it, I've walked it."