Sideways Sammy

After a big effort over the summer to sign him on a permanent deal, it’s been an inauspicious start to life in the Premier League for Carl Rushworth. It is too early to judge whether the goalkeeper is equipped for the highest-level of football, and his task is made all the more challenging by playing for a team that will be an underdog almost every week, but Rushworth has yet to really stamp his authority on games in the same manner he did last season. Without really having made major errors, the worry is that the cumulative effect of conceding goals most weeks could really dent the confidence that had made Rushworth so effective last year.

Carl Rushworth’s primary strength as a goalkeeper for Coventry City has been his shot-stopping ability. Last year, it was his ability to produce excellent reaction saves that so often kept the team in games long enough to eventually blitz the opposition. That is what has garnered the belief that Rushworth had the ability to step up to the task expected of this team’s goalkeeper this season, but it has been a challenging start to life in the highest division. The other sides to his game – commanding the area, and his distribution – are up for debate, he made great strides last year with his ability to claim balls into the box, while his distribution can lack accuracy but often carries an intent to get attacks started. The concern at the moment are that Rushworth’s shot-stopping has diminished dramatically, albeit from a very low sample size.

It’s less about the goals conceded this season for Carl Rushworth and more the lack of authority in his displays. Perhaps it’s hard for a goalkeeper to look confident while the team concedes lots of chances and, inevitably, goals but there’s already a sense that Rushworth’s head is dropping in response to the task ahead of him. Of course, similar criticisms of Rushworth were made at the start of last season, where he struggled to command immediate authority, what changed that were a couple of big performances that allowed him to settle into the role. While the hope was that the adaptation period could have been negated as a result of Rushworth having already been at the club a year, that could well be part of his process of settling into a new campaign.