Aston Villa: Stewart Downing hails keeper Brad Friedel

Apr 26 2010 by Andy Walker, Birmingham Mail

STEWART Downing praised Brad Friedel after the goalkeeper’s man-of-the-match performance in the Second City derby.

The evergreen American pulled off a string of fine saves to keep Blues at bay at Villa Park.

Downing said: “They were very good saves, but he’s been doing that all season. He’s been quiet for a long time in the game but when he’s called upon he’s made some good saves and that’s the sign of a good goalkeeper.

“Sometimes you need a bit of luck and for your keeper to pull one or two off and he did that for us.

“He’s almost 39 but he looks after himself.

“As long as he continues to do that then he’ll carry on playing and you can see in his performances that age doesn’t matter.”

Yesterday’s entertaining tussle was Downing’s first taste of the Second City derby because the Teessider was forced to sit out the St Andrew’s leg in September with injury.

He continued: “The atmosphere was brilliant. Even towards the end you could see the players were tired but we kept running and running and the fans spurred the players on a bit.

“I didn’t realise it would be this big. It was a great win, a big win.

“It was a good game of football.”