View: Portsmouth are getting the best out of 75.7% Nicolas Schmid at right time
Portsmouth are reaping the rewards of their faith in Nicolas Schmid as the club’s first-choice goalkeeper ahead of the visit to Derby County.
Pompey have so far used all three of their senior goalkeepers in the Championship this season, but summer signing Schmid has taken responsibility as John Mousinho’s main man between the sticks.
The Austrian, brought in for an undisclosed fee, has kept back-to-back clean sheets for the first time for a Pompey ‘keeper this term ahead of Friday night’s trip to Pride Park (13 December).
Portsmouth reaping rewards of Nicolas Schmid
A lot was made of the man-management task ahead of Mousinho when the club signed Schmid, adding to one of last season’s top performers with 19 clean sheets, Will Norris, and experienced backup Jordan Archer.
It began to become clearer he was the club’s first choice in time but he started sluggishly, including two poor goals conceded at Cardiff City before coming off injured.
But he has recovered well and was a rock against Norwich City on Tuesday night [10 December], keeping the free-scoring Canaries at bay with 12 recoveries, five saves and outranking his xG conceded of 0.41 [Fotmob].
This campaign, Schmid has averaged 3.36 saves per 90 minutes, keeping out 75.7 percent of shots faced. This has registered a goals conceded rate of just seven goals from 34 shots, outperforming an xG conceded of 10.72.
Disregarding Archer’s impressive cameo displays when he has been called upon, Schmid and Norris compared indicates the contrasting chapters of Pompey’s season so far.
The Austrian has conceded an average of 1.08 goals per game in all competitions, while Norris let in an average of 2.37 goals – the worst record in the Championship for stoppers who have played at least eight matches [FBRef].
In fairness to Norris, the context spares him a little – a far less settled defence was in front of him during his early run in the side, whereas now Pompey appear to have learnt some harsh lessons from the Championship. This campaign was intended to be a learning curve, after all.
Where Schmid does falter is his distribution. Even against Norwich, defensively he was sound enough, but on the ball produced just a 31 percent pass accuracy, combined with a 29 percent success rate of long balls. This poor record is consistent with his wider season, averaging a pass accuracy of just 34.3 percent.
There are wrinkles to be ironed out, but Pompey made a bold show of faith to bring in Schmid and replace promotion-winning stopper Norris midway through a poor run of team form. It looks, slowly but surely, to be paying off.
In other Portsmouth news, Pompey have found a long-term position for Terry Devlin after his performance against leading scorer Borja Sainz.
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