Why Birmingham City will have clear Coventry City transfer envy - it involves Brighton | OneFootball

Brighton's loanees to the Championship this season have had mixed success in the Midlands

A lot of Championship teams have envy towards Coventry City at the moment, with Frank Lampard's side dominant through the opening 21 games and holding a 12-point gap above Preston North End in third.

Alongside an attack which scores at will, the Sky Blues' defence has been among the best in the division too, with only Stoke City conceding fewer than Coventry's 22 goals through the opening four months of the campaign.

In goal for Coventry this season has been Brighton and Hove Albion loanee Carl Rushworth, who is once again establishing himself as one of the best shot-stoppers in the division after a campaign where his progress stagnated whilst playing backup to Ivor Pandur at Hull City, and Bart Verbruggen at the Amex Stadium once he was recalled from the MKM Stadium last January.

Now, he's playing so well that there have been rumours that Brighton may recall him to play higher up, but those rumours have been squashed. One person who is expected to be recalled by the Seagulls, though, is Eiran Cashin, whose spell at Birmingham City hasn't gone well at all.

Cashin arrived at the club on loan from Brighton in the summer, and so did England U21 international James Beadle. Neither has set the Championship alight, however, and given Rushworth's success in the Coventry goal, there'll be an increased envy at St Andrew's that their Brighton loanees haven't been as successful thus far.

James Beadle and Eiran Cashin haven't lived up to the highs that Carl Rushworth has provided in the Championship this season

Two seasons ago, Rushworth was sent out for his first Championship loan spell by Brighton, and he kept a respectable 10 clean sheets for Swansea City. Now, he leads the second tier's Golden Glove rankings as we approach the halfway point, keeping eight clean sheets in 21 games for table-topping Coventry.

Five clean sheets behind Rushworth is fellow Brighton loanee James Beadle, who arrived with high expectations, having been the shot-stopper for the European Championship-winning England U21s side during the summer.

Beadle had to bide his time behind Ryan Allsop for the opening stages of the campaign, and in 12 games he played since he made his league debut for the Blues in October, he's been solid, but not remarkable.

There were some calls for him to be replaced following a few instances where he could've done better to stop goals against Southampton and QPR, and he actually did miss last weekend's game against Charlton Athletic, albeit due to an ankle injury, rather than being dropped.

As for Cashin, the former Derby County centre-back has simply not been able to dislodge those ahead of him in the centre-back pecking order at St Andrew's since he arrived from the Seagulls on loan.

The Irishman cost Brighton £9 million on deadline day last January, and since then, he has played just 10 competitive fixtures — twice for Brighton, and eight times on loan at Birmingham.

In the Championship, Cashin has started just once for the Blues, in their 2-2 home draw with struggling Sheffield Wednesday. Ultimately, he hasn't shown enough to warrant replacing Christoph Klarer or Phil Neumann from the lineup.

Having been left on the bench in nine of the last 10 Championship outings, there's almost an inevitability that the 24-year-old will be recalled and sent back out on loan for valuable game time.

Birmingham City's main source of envy will come from Coventry City's success — it's heightened by Carl Rushworth's achievements

Granted, there'll be some envy from Birmingham that the goalkeeper they loaned from Brighton isn't as good as another Seagulls' shot-stopper in the Championship, but the majority of the frustration will stem from Coventry's electric start compared to the Blues, and why it hasn't happened to them.

Birmingham owner Tom Wagner outlined his ambitions to see the Blues obtain back-to-back promotions to the Premier League this season, following their League One title win.

With that ambition came a transfer window where Birmingham targeted a lot of exciting, young, up-and-coming stars alongside some established talent at the level, and both Beadle and Cashin fit into that first category.

However, his side are currently in the bottom half of the Championship, 18 points behind their Midlands rivals atop the division.

Rushworth is three years Beadle's elder, and with that comes a maturity and expectation to be more comfortable between the sticks in the senior game. Birmingham will have known this, and they will still be content with how the 21-year-old has performed thus far at St Andrew's. Additionally, Chris Davies' side has still only conceded four more than Coventry has.

If Birmingham had scored at the level that the Sky Blues have, and found themselves even second to Frank Lampard's side, everything would be positive. Beadle's errors would go down as learning curves, and Cashin would return to Brighton with everyone's best wishes and commiserations that it never worked out.

As it stands, Birmingham's envy towards Coventry's position is shared by the rest of the Championship — but it's heightened by the fact that their goalkeeper, in hindsight, could have been performing to the level he has at St. Andrew's, rather than the CBS Arena.