There isn’t much of a debate to be had with Matt Godden; when he plays, he scores goals. The key issue with Godden is how often he plays. Due to injury issues, Godden has yet to feature more than 30 times for Coventry City in each of the three full seasons he has had at the club. For someone who makes such a big impact when he plays, being unable to feature for around nearly half an entire season makes him a difficult player to build around.
Matt Godden is a very specific type of striker. A goal poacher who has little impact on open play, it’s not that Godden doesn’t put the hard yards in to lead the line and compete with opposing centre-backs, it’s that it is not his strength. There is an inverse relationship between how much of an impact Matt Godden makes on games and how many times he touches the ball. As Matt Godden is only as good as the service he receives, it has occasionally caused issues for the rest of the team when they need more of a presence up front to either link the play or to relieve pressure. It may be a coincidence, but Godden’s best form last season coincided with the team’s worst run.
After getting through an entire pre-season and starting the first two games of this campaign, this could well be the year where Matt Godden lasts the course injury-free. At 31 years old, it is unlikely that he will add any more strings to his bow, putting the conversation squarely on how Mark Robins and the rest of the team can maximise Godden’s output while being able to pick up results. Any debate with Matt Godden can be answered by the fact that he scores goals on a reliable basis. However, it has been both his lack of availability for long stretches of his time at the club and whether his style fits seamlessly into the team that makes Godden a more complicated player than he should be.
Sideways Sammy 