By Paul Jones
Carl Rushworth has the building blocks to become a wall of defiance in the Premier League , according to Swansea City head coach Michael Duff.
Rushworth was thrown in for his debut for the Swans and recovered from a shaky start to ensure his team earned a 1-1 draw from their opening Championship match of the season at home to Birmingham City.
Duff moved for Rushworth earlier in the week in a loan move to help solve something of a problem position for the club over the past couple of seasons.
Keshi Anderson was alert to pounce on Rushworth’s loose pass to Ben Cabango before teeing up Siriki Dembele who rifled home his first goal since joining Birmingham from Bournemouth for £2m.
But having earlier denied Dembele and Krystian Bielik, Rushworth produced a sublime one-handed save to keep out Ivan Sunjic’s late strike after £2.5m summer signing Jerry Yates had drawn Swansea level with his first goal for the club.
And Duff is confident the Seagulls want the 22-year-old Englishman to fight to be the club’s first choice shot-stopper in the future.
“Swansea fans might not want to hear it but he’s here to make those mistakes,” Duff said.
Swansea fans are already loving Carl Rushworth…
“What a Save, They always say don't fall in love with loan players but its going to be hard with this lad. He was outstanding today.” pic.twitter.com/XAgFzrdS8C
— North Stand Chat (@NorthStandChat) August 6, 2023
“I think Brighton think he’ll be a future Brighton goalkeeper. They don’t want him to make those mistakes for them, so we have to bite that bullet, but we think we’ve got a really good goalkeeper off the back of it and he’ll learn from that.
“It’s not just his mistake, but it’s an education.”
Duff was left encouraged by his team’s recovery after falling a goal behind, but frustrated by their poor start.
He added: “I’ve got mixed emotions, really. Birmingham started probably a bit better than us but I thought we finished the first half really well, so I’m really disappointed to give away a poor goal.
“I think we were pretty dominant in the second half and they were trying to shut up shop.
“The players stuck to their task, I thought we looked really fit – we were still going in the 97th minute.
“We were ultimately a little bit unfortunate. We hit the crossbar, there was a goalmouth scramble that was somehow cleared off the line and we scored a really good goal.
“That’s the frustration. They’ve not had to do a lot to score and we’ve had to do a lot to score our goal. They are things we need to learn.”
Not the best start for Carl Rushworth at Swansea. pic.twitter.com/89TUQmU80a
— North Stand Chat (@NorthStandChat) August 5, 2023
The Championship opener in Swansea saw Dion Sanderson captain Birmingham following his permanent switch to the club in the summer.
Sanderson had two loan spells with the Blues in addition to stints at Cardiff, Sunderland and QPR before calling time on his Wolves career in July.
The 23-year-old is one of nine players to join John Eustace’s side ahead of the new campaign, and the defender says he was bombarded with messages from relatives after finding out he would wear the armband upon his return.
“It’s an honour, my family have been non-stop messaging me,” he said.
“Me personally, I’m just going to cherish it.
Swansea head coach Michael Duff says Olivier Ntcham rang him last night saying he didn’t want to play today pic.twitter.com/c1XYcurL6K
— Simon Davies (@simondavies45) August 5, 2023
“I think it just comes naturally with me. The role, I take it very seriously.
“But I say to the boys, even though I’m captain, we need everyone to be a leader out on the pitch.
“It’s very enjoyable and long may it continue.”
On his side’s draw with Swansea, Sanderson said: “It’s a good start to our campaign, we’ve been working really hard in pre-season. There’s lots of positives.
“I definitely think we could have come away with all three points. But overall it’s a really good start.”
