Worthing closing in on adding new keeper to the squad

Lucas Covolan broke an arm in Worthing's FA Cup win at Moneyfields earlier this month and Worthing manager Hinshelwood hoped to have a new keeper in place for Saturday's game with Kingstonian, which Worthing won 3-1.

One move fell through and the club could not get another deal completed in time, which meant 16-year-old youth keeper Aaron Relf was in goal against the K's.

He made one excellent save at 2-1 and Hinshelwood praised the young stopper but says it would be too much to expect a 16-year-old to play week in, week out at the moment.

On the attempts to bring a new keeper in, Hinshelwood said: "It was a bit of a mad day on Friday, very frantic. It was like transfer deadline day and all I was waiting for was the Sky Sports reporter.

"We had a keeper lined up from a Premier League team but the Premier League wouldn't sanction anyone moving outside the transfer window.

"We had another one which we couldn't get over the line as well.

"We tried the best we could to get a goalkeeper in but I knew in the back of my mind we had Aaron and from what I've seen there was nothing to fear with playing him.

"We knew we'd have to try to protect him a little bit from set-pieces as best we could because he's not the biggest keeper in the world but he's one who's not phased.

"He played in front of a big crowd in pre-season against Salford and did exceptionally. He made a great save that day and he's calm on the ball, so we knew we had him ready to go.

"We frantically tried to get something done on Friday but nothing transpired, so we gave the 16-year-old his opportunity and he did really well."

Hinshelwood now hopes to complete a deal for a keeper this week, with Worthing travelling to Ebbsfleet in the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup on Saturday.

He said: "We tried ten keepers in the end on Friday but none of them could help us out for the game, so Aaron got his opportunity. But we'd be stupid and naive to think a 16-year-old is going to be able to play week in, week out.

"We're hopeful of getting one in for the next few months and are trying to get one across the line. Hopefully in the next couple of days we'll have one sorted and ready to go.

"But if anything does happen to anyone we get in, we've got that security with Aaron."

Hinshelwood expects Covolan to be out until at least January and said: "He doesn't need an operation so will have a cast on for four weeks and then they'll X-ray it to see how it's healing.

"We'll know a lot more in a few weeks time after the X-ray. I still think it's going to be a minimum of three months."

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