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Joe Whitworth endured a mixed start to his Exeter City career but he's flying now after some strong showings.

The resurrection is not quite at Lazarus proportions, but Joe Whitworth’s rapid and emphatic revival has been something to behold.

The Crystal Palace keeper is on loan at Exeter City for the season and endured a tricky start to life in Devon’s capital with two costly errors in his first four games.

Some supporters were quick to criticise, especially after being treated to last season’s consistently-excellent displays from the on-loan Viljami Sinisalo between the sticks.

We took a look at Whitworth’s situation in the early days at St James Park a couple of weeks ago and urged supporters to stick with the England youth international.

Fast-forward three weeks and his picture looks a lot rosier.

Since the end of the last international break, City have picked up seven points from four games and conceded two goals, which both came in the 2-1 defeat at Blackpool.

Tuesday night’s battling 1-0 victory away at Leyton Orient took the Grecians into the top half of the table and marked a third-consecutive clean sheet for City’s No.1 and his burly backline.

Not to curse things but, with Cambridge at home next and Shrewsbury after the international break, there is the potential for that streak to reach five games, with both sides scoring six goals each in eight and nine games respectively this season.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s focus on what’s actually happened and that appears to be a complete 180 from Whitworth’s early detractors.

Joe Whitworth had poor start to Exeter career

There were plenty of comments online about Whitworth’s first few appearances but, as he celebrated in front of almost 700 traveling Grecians on Tuesday, those look to be a thing of the past.

City's followers took great joy in singing ‘Super Sinisalo in goal’ last season, and it’s a badge of honour for Whitworth that it’s been co-opted as his new song.

He clearly absolutely loved hearing it, grinning from ear to ear and pumping his fists after the final whistle rubber-stamped his fifth clean sheet in eight League One games this year.

The adulation has been richly deserved, too. Those two errors earlier in the season turned draws into defeats, with successive 2-1 league losses to Northampton and Peterborough causing alarm, though he did also save a penalty in the latter.

Whitworth showing is quality at Exeter

But he showed his excellent shot-stopping ability with the last-touch-of-the-game save from former City defender Will Aimson in the drab 0-0 at Wigan and followed up with two more on Tuesday.

First he was in the right spot to keep Brandon Cooper’s header out before Sonny Perkins surely thought he’d scored with a glanced effort, only to see Whitworth scamper across and bat it away from its route towards the bottom corner.

So, two points were dropped earlier in the season, and three picked up in the last week from the diminutive stopper.

We’re back in the black, and it now feels like he’ll keep it that way come the end of the season.

Caldwell never lost faith in Whitworth

City boss Gary Caldwell always maintained faith in the 20-year-old, defending him at the start of the season and praising him during the week.

After the win in east London, he said: "That's another clean sheet on the road and a long road at that.

"I thought that Tristan [Crama] and Joe were outstanding at defending the box and obviously when Joe was needed, he pulled off some brilliant saves.

"That's what you need, you need big characters to win football matches and we had that tonight.

"Joe has been brilliant since he came to the club, his personality, the way he approaches every game, his mentality to football is first-class."

Whitworth has shown that elite mentality with how quickly and easily he’s bounced back from those initial setbacks.

The quality was obviously always there. You don’t play for Palace and your country’s youth teams without it, but now he’s in form and has the backing of City’s faithful, it looks set to be another excellent loan deal for both the club and the player.

He's pinched Sinisalo's song and if he can put in performances close to the Fin's last season, we'll be hearing it plenty more times between now and May.