Jon Walters has thanked Tony Pulis for giving him the opportunity to make amends for his horrendous show against Chelsea and set up a re-run of Stoke City's 2011 FA Cup final meeting with Manchester City.
• Blog: The return of Super Jon
Pulis has admitted he considered leaving Walters out of the side which defeated Crystal Palace 4-1 in Tuesday night's replay to set up a fourth-round meeting with City at the Britannia Stadium.
Just 72 hours after his two own goals and a missed penalty in the 4-0 defeat by Rafa Benitez's side, Walters went from zero to hero with two goals to help win the third-round replay against the Championship side.
Pulis felt Walters deserved the chance to go again so soon after his personal nightmare against Chelsea and Walters was delighted to reward the faith of his manager and atone for his errors with two goals in extra time.
"It's been a funny few days for me, without doubt, but it's just important not to get too high with the highs and too low with the lows," he told the club's official website.
"In football you have ups and downs, but you have to try and remain level headed at all times - because if you don't then you get affected by things.
"I was confident coming into the game. There was never an issue about that. What happened on Saturday happened on Saturday and you just have to move on."
"I got a bit of stick from the lads at the weekend, but most of that came from me kicking the ball against my own head, before I scored the two own goals. It's nice to get a couple at the right end tonight though.
"I feel great after this one and it is nice. I just had to persevere and keep going and what a great ball from Matty Etherington for my first goal. He put those kind of balls in all game," said Walters.
"Once we went into extra-time we had the energy and the fitness to go on and win the game."
Pulis wanted to leave Walters out of his side and was toying with giving Michael Owen astart to increase the veteran striker's match fitness, but felt he had to go with his regular striker after events against Chelsea.
The Stoke manager felt there was never any questions about Walters' mental strength and was delighted to be proved right and gran a chance for revenge against City.
"I didn't really want to play Jon Walters, but after what happened to him on Saturday I thought it was the best thing for him and he did superbly. It was really good to see him get those two goals.
"Man City in the next round will be a tough one for us, but one we are going to look forward to. It will be like the FA Cup final from a couple of years ago all over again."
