Harry Cardwell – Scout Report

Harry Cardwell is in great goalscoring form at the moment. He has scored five goals in his last five starts in all competitions and is proving to be vitally important for Southend since his return to full fitness.

He’s strong enough to hold the ball up, is a great box presence, is an effective presser of the ball and has excellent movement. All of this added together makes him a real nuisance for opposition defenders to deal with.

One of the things that makes him so important for Southend is that we don’t really have anyone else of the same profile as Cardwell, although all of our strikers possess different strengths to one another. None of them have the same combined strength and aerial ability, whilst arguably only Callum Powell shows the same level of pressing intensity as Cardwell does.

Aerial Ability

Cardwell’s physical stature allows him to be a real presence in the opponent’s penalty area. It’s well known that Southend like to get the ball out to the flanks and use our wide players to cross the ball into the box, often through our left side with Jack Bridge. Cardwell’s box presence gives us a target to aim for.

In my opinion there’s no other striker in Southend’s squad who has the same aerial presence as Cardwell, one of the reasons being his movement when attacking crosses. Quite often you’ll see him positioned in a bit of space away from his marker when the ball is out wide, and as the cross comes into the box he’ll charge forwards giving him the momentum to generate immense power on his header. Below are some screenshots providing examples of this.

Cardwell’s aerial ability is also useful when helping out with defensive set-pieces.

Strength

His physical presence adds to the issues that opponents face when up against him. When competing for duels with defenders, Cardwell’s strength regularly allows him to either successfully hold the ball up, allowing us to retain possession high up the pitch, or put opponents under enough pressure so that they’re forced into conceding possession themselves.

Here’s an example of Cardwell receiving a pass before holding off an opposition defender to get a shot away.

Movement

Another element of physicality which Cardwell has in abundance is speed. He’s quick enough so that, if opportunities arise, he can play on the shoulder of the last defender to receive through passes from teammates.

When you combine this natural speed with his intelligent movement, Cardwell becomes a very difficult player to track from a defender’s perspective. He likes to position himself between two opposition defenders to cause confusion as to who should be marking him. From here he’s able to make intelligent runs behind opponents to go unnoticed so that when he receives passes from teammates he’s in prime position to cause chaos, as I will now demonstrate.

For his goal at home to Solihull this season, you can see him in between two opposition defenders when Callum Powell is receiving a pass.

Cardwell then makes a run towards goal behind the near-side defender so that when he receives the ball from Powell he’s goal-side of his opponent and can shoot easily into the bottom corner of the net.

Another example here, and you can see Nathan Ralph playing a nice through ball over the top of the defence for Cardwell to run onto. He again makes a run behind the defender to go unnoticed and when he receives the ball he’s goal-side and 1v1 with the goalkeeper.

A similar situation here from last season. Cardwell is this time marked by a defender but makes a wide run behind another opponent who is unable to see him. After receiving a through pass from Sam Dalby he’s able to get a shot away which comes back off of the post.

Work Rate

The final thing that I think is worthwhile mentioning is how hard Cardwell works out of possession. Similar to Callum Powell, his work rate really helps to set the tempo of the whole side from the top of the pitch.

It’s one thing being willing to press the opposition or chase loose balls, but having that speed that I mentioned earlier helps to facilitate this further.

Here’s an example from our recent home match versus Eastleigh. A cross comes into the box but is deflected. Cardwell is being marked and Eastleigh have enough players back to easily deal with the loose ball.

Despite this, Cardwell is able to get to the loose ball first, hold off a defender and cross the ball into the path of Rhys Murphy.

Although on this occasion we didn’t score, this was a huge chance and entirely created through Cardwell’s hard work.

I couldn’t write this piece without mentioning this final example. Away to Gateshead earlier this season Cardwell managed to win an aerial duel, twice beat opponents to a loose ball and pass brilliantly to Dan Mooney to score – all in the same move.

At 3-0 down away from home in the last few minutes after just coming back from a long injury, it would have been far easier to not bother. But Cardwell exemplified so much of what makes him a vital piece of the jigsaw for Southend in this one sequence; showing aerial ability, strength, speed, work rate and selflessness.

Cardwell is on a hot streak of goalscoring form at the moment. Hopefully this will continue, but even if it doesn’t he brings so much to this side that makes him a truly important player to Southend.