Federici could not have done more

I find it hard to imagine how difficult it must be for Adam Federici at AFCB. He knows he is the number two and changing the manager's mind on that has not been easy for him. While he had an opportunity against Stoke City, through a back injury to Artur Boruc, it is not the way he would have liked to win a place in the side.

Feds and Artur - the gloves are off.

The reappearance of Federici in front of an AFCB away crowd gladly did not have memories for him of Man City from last season. Adam knew he had to play well this time and he probably thought he would have been kept busier than he was. In the first half I think there was only a header from Ryan Shawcross that actually counted as a shot on target from Stoke. But the second half it was a different matter. Federici made the save from Wilfred Bony's header look fairly routine, and he must have been one of the most annoyed players on the pitch when he saw Simon Francis give a penalty away a second later. 

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When a team miss a penalty there is a kind of belief that luck could be on your side and that gives more of an invisibility to keepers who can say to themselves - I'm not going to get beat today - and Federici through himself into a fair number of saves, particularly the point blank save from Walters, when he was not favourite to keep it out. There was a good amount of covering from his defenders that were doing all they could to help out, and I felt the lads really worked well together to cope with the Stoke City threat when it stepped up.

Whether Boruc feels well enough to come back for the Arsenal game is something only he will know, but it is likely that if Artur says he is okay that he will take his shirt back. So Federici is a hero for a day, but he is valued much higher than that. While Eddie has kept Boruc as the number one, he has always been behind Federici as class act, and it is just unfortunate that AFCB can't offer him more game time. But Boruc's form this season has been worthy of him staying the number one.