Despite winning the Championship Golden Glove the previous season, Ben Wilson has a good case to be rested in the near future. Coventry City’s 2023–24 season has gotten off to a difficult start, especially in light of how strong they were the previous season in the Championship.
The Sky Blues were extremely unfortunate to lose to Luton in a play-off final penalty shootout and to lose their two best players, Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres, for large fees after missing out on returning to the Premier League for the first time in 2022.
Coventry sits in 20th place in the table after 14 games in the second tier season, despite being six full points clear of the drop zone at this time. Mark Robins was given a warchest to spend to upgrade his team in multiple positions, but it hasn’t quite clicked for them so far.
Even with high-profile additions like Haji Wright, Ellis Simms, and Liam Kitching, things are still not clicking, and Robins needs things to change quickly before City faces real relegation trouble.
The area between the posts, where Ben Wilson, who won the Championship’s Golden Glove the previous season, continued to play for the Robins, was one area where Coventry should have had stability.
But even the 31-year-old has been having trouble this season, maybe as a result of the different options available to him in the three-man defence.
Should Mark Robins bench Ben Wilson?
With Luke McNally and Callum Doyle flanking him, Kyle McFadzean was extremely formidable in the second half of the previous season. However, both of those youthful loanees left the Championship, so Robins now has options from players like Bobby Thomas, Liam Kitching, Luis Binks, and Joel Latibeaudiere.
It’s possible that Wilson doesn’t currently trust his new teammates, but he hasn’t been playing at his best, as demonstrated on Monday night when West Brom visited the CBS Arena.
Grady Diangana took advantage of Wilson’s early error to expose the goalie’s error from close range after Wilson mishandled a fairly routine long shot from Nathaniel Chalobah.
This season, Wilson has undoubtedly appeared less reliable, so the time may have come for the Robins to try Brad Collins, their backup goalie.
Despite the fact that Wilson was the best goalie in the division according to statistics the previous season, Robins brought Collins to the CBS Arena to give him some competition.
Wilson’s opportunity came only after a dismal start to the season for Simon Moore, demonstrating how quickly selection strategies can change.
Even though Wilson hasn’t exactly demonstrated it with some of his performances, Collins has most likely been keeping him on his toes in recent weeks.
Who is Brad Collins?
Collins came through the Chelsea youth system and had two respectable loan stints at Forest Green Rovers and Burton Albion before joining Barnsley permanently in 2019. Despite his young age, Collins has a strong background and a tonne of experience.
Although he wasn’t always the starting goalie for the Tykes, Collins maintained his position in the following season despite the Yorkshire team’s relegation to League One by keeping nine clean sheets in 22 games during their run to the second round of the playoffs in 2020–21.
After giving up less than a goal per game in League One the previous season, Collins was playing well until suffering an injury in the middle of the campaign. However, he was unable to replace Harry Isted at Oakwell, and he hasn’t played since February except for one EFL Cup match for Coventry in August.
Collins can easily replace Wilson in that position, and Robins ought to consider it before Coventry travels up the M6 to play Preston North End on Saturday afternoon.
